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THE

ENDOWMENTS OF MAN

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THE

ENDOWMENTS OF MAN

CONSIDERED IN THEIR RELATIONS WITH HIS-
FINAL END,

% Course of feecfuree

BY

BISHOP ULLATHORNE.

THIRD EDITION.

London: BURNS & GATES, Limited.

New York: CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY CO.
1888.

PREFACE.

These Lectures were delivered in their original form to the
clerics of St Bernard's Seminary, but have since been recon-
structed and enlarged for a wider audience. They are an
example of that constructive method of teaching, which, so far
from neglecting the analytical method, absorbs it in the edifice
built up of large and harmonious truths. Two objects are
contemplated in this work. The first and chief is to fortify the
Catholic mind against the errors respecting man and his endow-
ments which so widely pervade the world of thought in our day,
not so much by direct confutation of them, as by confronting
them with the Catholic view of man, as revealed by God, and
drawn out by Catholic thinkers through the long ages of Chris-
tianity. It has for some time been the fashion with the infidel
school to leave God aside, to declare that the Divine Author of
their being is unknown to them, and is inaccessible to their
knowledge. By thus confessing their mental and moral blindness,
these men, who profess, notwithstanding, to be the enlighteners
of their age, put themselves to shame before the common sense
and conscience of mankind at large. Nevertheless the poison of
their writings makes its way into many unguarded minds; and
whilst they profess not to have God in their knowledge, they are
mischievously employed in endeavouring to pull man to pieces,
and as far as the theories of the brain can destroy the facts of
creation, to efface from him the testimonies of God, and the
witnesses of his noble origin and sublime destination. What they
endeavour to destroy is the subject of this book.

vi PREFACE.

My second object may be expressed in a few words. I have
for some years contemplated a book on certain fundamental
virtues which belong to the Church of Christ, but not to the
world. But I deeply felt that the book I contemplated required
a certain preparation of mind, as the virtues of faith, humility, and
Christian magnanimity rest on very deep foundations. I there-
fore composed this book, although complete in itself, by way of
preface to another book, should the goodwill of God enable me to
bring it to a conclusion.

I have only to add, that I have freely used the materials of
more authoritative writers, where they suited my purpose, without
always expressing my obligations.

CONTENTS.

LECTURE I.

PAQB

On the Nature of Man i

LECTURE n.
Why Man is made in the Image of God . . .27

LECTURE in.
The Secondary Image of God in Man . . -53

LECTURE IV.
Creation and Providence 81

LECTURE V.
Self and Conscience n6

LECTURE VI.
Self and Conscience as Unveiled in the Book of Job 147

LECTURE VII.
On Evil and the Origin of Evil . . . .169

LECTURE VIII.

On Justice and Moral Evil 195

LECTURE IX.
On Penal Evil or Punishment 220

LECTURE X.

Why Man was not Created Perfect . . .251

viii CONTENTS.

LECTURE XI.

PAGE

The Fall of Man in Connection with the Fall of the
Angels and the Redemption of Christ . .279

LECTURE XIL

The Restoration of Man 309

LECTURE XIIL

The Regeneration of Man 340

LECTURE XIV.

From the Beginning to the End of Man . . . 374

LECTURE I.

ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

"What is man that thou shouldst magnify him ? or why shouldst thou set
thy heart upon him ? " — Job vii. 17.

THE world repeats the saying of the poet, that the proper
study of mankind is man ; but whilst the men of the
world commend this study as of chief importance, they pronounce
their own condemnation. For what man of the world cares to
know himself? And how can any one know man who is ignorant
of himself? The knowledge of his earthly frame is not the
knowledge of man ; nor the natural history that marks the ex-
ternal diversities of the various branches of the human family ; nor
the science of his mental faculties and their operations; nor
those other sciences that investigate by parts the several elements
that enter into his composition. When these sciences are pur-
sued with loyalty to the facts, and the mind of the investigator is
free from imaginative theories, they confirm the essential unity of
the human race, notwithstanding accidental differences that only
mark the diversities within the species. But those partial studies
of the components of human nature will not teach us the pro-
founder things that belong to our humanity; on the contrary,
from the mind absorbed in the study of the external man, the
internal man is but too apt to escape, so that what constitutes the
dignity of man is lost from view.

There is also a certain practical knowledge of man that is
called the knowledge of the world, and the knowledge of life.
But unhappily this knowledge of the world is more occupied with
the deviations of men from the true standard of manhood, than

X

2 ON THE NATURE OF MAN

with what concerns his real dignity; and there is truth in the
words of the sage who said, " I never return from among men, but
I find myself less a man ".

There is but one science in which man is comprehensively
and completely known, and that is the science of God. For God
alone knows with a complete knowledge how He has made man,
and for what end He has made him. It may be said, therefore,
with perfect truth that the simple-hearted man who lives humbly
in the light of divine revelation, has a more profound and exalted
knowledge of man than all these sciences could teach him. For
the true man is within us, and this man can neither be reached by
the scalpel of the anatomist, nor by the investigator of our mental
operations, nor by the observer of man's social conduct. The
soul is more than the body, and the light is more than the soul,
and the life is more than the light. To find the light of truth, we
must close the five windows of the senses, that the interior house
may be lighted up. To find the life of the soul, we must open the
door of our inward sense, that the Divine Giver of our life may
find no resistance.

God is not only the creator, but the illuminator of man ; it is
His light that reveals us to ourselves. He who knows himself
through this illumination has a light by which to know all man-
kind. But this knowledge is rare, because men as a rule look
outwards, and not inwards. There is much within us, neverthe-
less, that self-knowledge never reaches, and that is known to God
alone. Even of what we do know, there is much that comes not
to the surface whether through action or speech. The outward
man is not the full expression of the inward man. If men who
limit their studies to the exterior man are often led into absurd
theories respecting his nature and origin, other men who desert
the knowledge of God are carried away into theories as far from
the truth, through their ignorance of what is mysterious in his
soul.

To understand what man is, we must know the fundamental
principle of his constitution. Without this principle we have no
key to his nature. Composed of a spiritual soul and a material
body, the body is the organ of the soul and the soul is the vital
form of the body. The body of man is the immediate subject of his
soul, and his soul is the immediate subject of God. This, then, is
the fundamental principle of his constitution, that man is a subject

ON THE NATURE OF MAN. 3

made for an object, and without knowing the object we cannot
understand the subject. Let us explain this by some familiar
example. The eye of man is the subject of light. The eye is
the subject ; light and the forms of things contained in light are
the object of the eye. If we had never known light, we should
never have understood the nature of the eye, or why it was
made as it is made. But the light itself teaches us, and from it
we know that the eye is a subject receptive of light, and of the
things contained in light, which are its object. The heart, again,
as taken for the seat of our affections, is the subject of love ;
but if we had never had an object to love, we should never have
known the nature of the heart. But as there is an instinct and
an appetite in the heart that craves for love, we should have been
unhappy in the sense of our want, without knowing why we were
unhappy.

Man is a subject made for an object, and nothing can satisfy
him but the object for which he is made. It is, therefore, im-
possible to know what he is as a subject until we know for what
object he is made. When he finds his true object, he under-
stands himself. When the question is asked : Is life worth
living ? it can only be answered by him who understands what
is the true object and the final end of life. The object of life
and the final end of life are one and the same. There may be,
and there are, intermediate objects of life, in which our present
duties are involved ; but to the man who knows God, and whose
mental eyes are clear, the final object of life shines through them
all. Those intermediate objects, as he knows from the light that
beams from God as his final end, must be either overcome or be so
mastered as to become the means to help him on to the one true
object of his life. This is the solution of the trials and contests
of our present life in this world. Our present life is so devised as
to quicken and bring out our faculties, and to energize our will by
opposition in the exercise of the virtues, and to rouse our courage
and magnanimity, that we may pass, with God's help, through
all intermediate objects to the final object of our life — to that
supreme object of desire for which our nature is constituted, as an
humble subject made for a divine object.

Man is made for God. He is therefore made with a great
capacity for eternal truth and for eternal things, and has an ap-
petite implanted in his soul for unlimited good. It follows, as a

4 ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

matter of course, that man is not an independent being ; and of
this he is full conscious. He is constituted under special relations
of dependence on his Divine Creator, from whom he receives both
light and good, and who is the final end of his existence. It is
utterly impossible to understand what man is, unless we consider
his relations with God ; and he may always find them in the
summit of his intelligence, at the root of his will, and in the light
of his conscience. Even in the most perverse of men these tes-
timonies of God cannot be effaced : the more he struggles against
them, the more they assert their presence and their power. The
chief purpose of his intelligence is to light him on to the know-
ledge of God ; the chief purpose of his will is to move him on
towards God, as the supreme object of desire ; the one purpose
of his conscience is to regulate his mind and will according to the
pre-established order of justice, which is founded in the relations
of his dependence on God, both as the perfecter of his being and
as the final end of his existence.

The man who fancies that he is his own object, and that he is
capable of giving content to himself, is utterly ignorant of the
constitution of his nature. He is not the giver but the receiver
of that good which gives happiness ; he is the container, but not
the content. God is the contenter of man ; He gives him his
light and his life, and the good that belongs to life ; and the pre-
sent light and life have for their object to bring him into the open
presence of God, where God will be his light, life, and happiness.
Hence the nearer a man approaches to God, the more light he has
by which to know himself ; but the further he recedes from God,
the less light he has to understand himself. For God is to man
what the sun's light and warmth are to the world ; if he turns from
God he is darkened and chilled with his own shadows.

A subject without its object is in a rudimentary condition, for
the object completes the subject. For this reason the man who is
in his just order and right relations with God is advancing towards
his completion, and in him the plan of human nature is being ful-
filled. For however complete a man may be in his own nature,
he is not complete as a subject, which is the fundamental principle
of his nature, unless he is brought into union with God as His
Divine Object, and possesses the good for which he is made ;
that is to say, he is without his perfection and content. As God
is both the Author and the Perfecter of man, He alone can teach

ON THE NATURE OF MAN 5

man what he is ; for which reason Job asks of God : " What is
man that Thou shouldst magnify him ? Or why dost Thou set
Thy heart upon him ? " As David also asks : *' What is man, that
Thou art mindful of him ? or the son of man, that Thou visitest
him?"

If we want proof of the extent to which men may go into error
respecting the nature of man, when they reject the knowledge of
God, we have only to consider the number, the extravagance, and
the contradictory character of the theories of human nature which
have been put forth in this unbelieving age, by men who profess
to make the nature and history of man their special study. We
are invited by men of culture and science to accept such theories
as the following : —

One tells us that man is an animal ; another that he is a sen-
tient, self-conscious machine. A third, that he is a conscious
manifestation of an unconscious universal being. A fourth in-
forms us that he is a mind invested with delusion. A fifth main-
tains that he is thought and nothing but thought. A sixth would
have us understand that he is individually the one and only mind,
and that all things else are but the phenomena of his mind. A
seventh theory upholds that man is descended from the lowest
brutal existence, either from a jelly-fish or some kind of worm, or,
which is the newest theory, from a microscopic cell that lies
buried at the bottom of the ocean. In a word, that the first
ancestor of man was bathybius, which means the bathos of life.
But when these men of science come to the immediate ancestor
of man, there is again a sectarian division, one maintaining that
he is descended from the ape, another from the kangaroo,
although both maintain that there is a link still wanting to
connect him with either of these animals.

An eighth theory makes man an evolution of the eternal mind.
A ninth pronounces him to be a spark of the divinity. A tenth
allows him to be a rational animal, but altogether material,
secreting his thoughts from some bundle of nerves, or from
some interior organ of the body. An eleventh pronounces
positively that man is altogether mortal and ends in the grave,
but that nevertheless collective humanity is our divinity, and the
true object of our worship. A twelfth philosophy tells us that
man has no free will, or choice of thought or action. A thirteenth
refuses him all knowledge of God, and all power of communicating

6 ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

with Him. A fourteenth maintains that man's conscience is an
error, and even a blunder, and the cause of all his misery, and
that it requires to be reconstructed by the authority of the civil
state. And to conclude this amazing list of scientific heresies,
the latest school of German infidelity has come to the conclusion
that man is nothing but will, not personal will, but will of the
species with imaginative presentation, and that he is nothing but
hopeless misery, although an element of divinity.

Such are the consolations of modern philosophy; such the
scientific dreams of "men who refuse to have God in their know-
ledge. Their treason against God has destroyed their dignity as
men. Like Satan in the Book of Job, they have gone round the
earth and through it to seek the knowledge of man, yet what is
open even to the ignorant and poor has escaped them. We may
Avell say to these friends of humanity as Job said to his con-
solers : " Miserable comforters are ye all ". If they only knew
something of themselves, they might know God. If they only
knew something of God, they might know themselves.

When Plato forgot his high speculations for a moment, and
defined man to be a two-legged animal without feathers, Diogenes
presented his man to him in the shape of a plucked fowl. The
irony was perfect, and Diogenes is much wanted among our new
philosophers. Plato's amendment, that man has broad toe and
finger nails, completes the likeness of the old absurdity to the new
ones. When naturalists tell us that man differs from the very
noblest ape by a thumb, a planted foot, or a larger convolution
of brain, we do not deny these or any other distinctions of the
kind ; but we feel our nature insulted. When the Positivists come
with eloquent pens to assure us in glistening sentences that we
have no soul or life beyond the grave, we are reminded of the
glistening folds of the serpent in which Satan came to ruin man-
kind. For heaven they give us a skull decked with flowers, and
for our present consolation they offer us the worship of a corrupt
and perishing humanity. But the immortal life within us springs
up with indignation to repel these horrors. When the Pantheist
tells us that man, with all his weakness, with all his evil propen-
sities and vices, is an emanation, or an evolution, or a scintilla-
tion, or some other manifestation of the one Divine and Eternal
Being, we know that reveries like these come of the high fever of
intellectual pride, confusing the object with the subject, and

ON THE NATURE OF MAN. 7

attended by some grievous disorder of the moral sense. We
turn from these brainsick reveries to the light of common sense
for refreshment, and seek comfort in the revelations of God. If
these monstrosities of the mind strike sensible men with astonish-
ment, they may also teach the great lesson, that we stand as much
in need of the virtue of humility to keep us reasonable and safe
in our common sense, as to keep us in faith with God.

But the Church, however saddened by these spectacles, is
most certainly not taken by surprise. All these things are
familiar to her philosophy as well as to her theology, ^he has
great age and experience, and a long memory. Her earliest
Fathers had to encounter most of these theories in one shape or
another, in the Gnostic sects, or in the pagan philosophers, and
she has had every one of them to encounter at one time or
another. The mode of their presentation may be different, but
the errors themselves are the same, and with no greater cogency
than they formerly possessed. But what calls for special remark,
because it conveys a great instruction, is the fact, that the nature
of man has become as much a ground of dispute as the sense of
the Scriptures, and by a very similar process. The Scriptures
were taken out of the hands of that authority to which God
committed them for their safety, and man has been taken out of
the hands of God. After this the process of dissolution began,
destructive criticism was first applied to the Scriptures, and after-
wards to man ; the diviner elements were first eliminated from
the Scriptures, and next we see the effort to eliminate the diviner
elements from man. The same false principle is at the root of
both these procedures. The subjective man, with his own small
measure of reason encompassed with imagination, and impas-
sioned with the love of independence, has made his personal
judgment the standard and the measure of all things both human
and divine. The result of this anti-principle of private and sub-
jective interpretation has been, from the nature of things, the
destruction of faith, and has left almost as many opinions as
heads, until it has annihilated the revelation of God in the souls
of a great number of men.

By a like method destructive criticism has taken hold of man.
The subjective man has withdrawn himself from God as his
divine object, has taken himself out of the hands of God, and
after renouncing His authority, has undertaken to interpret the

8 ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

nature of that divine work which we call man, who is himself a
revelation of *God. Upon this text he exercises his rationalistic
views, which are never rational, because he always leaves out of
his premises certain elements that are essential and proper to
man. Then the more accurately he reasons from his defective
premises, the greater is the monster that comes forth in the con-
clusion. Either the objective truth is confounded with the sub-
jective man, and then we have pantheism ; or the soul is con-
founded with the body, and then we have materialism ; or the
image of God is rejected from the soul, and then God is declared
to be unknown and unknowable.

The first distinction of man from the animal is his spiritual
nature, of which he is fully conscious. The second is his posses-
sion of the light of intelligence, by which he has the perception
of universal and unchangeable truth. He is the subject of that
truth ; the truth commands him, and calls for his submission ; he
cannot command or change the truth. The animal has the per-
ception of particular things ; can imagine them, remember them,
compare them, and conclude from them ; but the animal has not
the knowledge of principles or universals, which belong to the
light of intelligence. The animal has images of things, man
alone can ascend from images to universal ideas ; the animal can
feel that this fruit is sweet, man alone can form the general idea
of sweetness. His spiritual sense and aspiration after unlimited
good is the third distinction of man. For the animal is limited
in sense and desire to a narrow compass of material things. His
conscience, enlightened with the law of justice, and with the
sense of God's presence, and of his own responsibility, is his fourth
distinction. His gift of language is the fifth distinction, for this
gift the animal can never possess, as it depends for its exercise on
the light of intelligence, and on the possession of universal ideas.
His capacity for art and science is the sixth. How is it, for
example, that the advocates of man's descent from animal life
have never dreamed of ascribing those primitive tools, weapons,
and artistic drawings of animals to any creature but man ? His
seventh distinction is his capacity as God's image for the gifts of
supernatural truth and divine grace. His eighth distinction is
that sense of duty to God which inclines him to religion. Cicero
spoke the voice of all humanity when he said : " There is no
animal but man that has the consciousness of God; and no

ON THE NATURE OF MAN. 9

nation of men so wild and ferocious as not to know that they
ought to have a god, even though they may not know what god
they ought to have ".* Finally, man is erect by nature, while the
animals are curved towards the earth ; his countenance, which
looks towards the heavens, beams with light and intelligence,
and he exercises dominion over all the animals that God has
created.

To define man without giving the first place to his spiritual
nature, and some indication of his relations with God, is to leave
out what is principal in him, and chief in his distinctions. JMany
philosophers, following Aristotle, define him to be a rational animal.
Others define him to be a social animal. Some, again, designate him
as a religious animal. But these definitions seem to be defective,
and to do him wrong in classing him with the genus animal. His
first substantial principle is not animal but spiritual, and ration-
ality is not the distinctive qualification of the animal but of the
spiritual part of man. Reason is in no sense the qualification of
animal. In this definition rationality is not only made the dis-
tinctive quality of the animal man, but the spiritual nature or soul
of man is left to be inferred from one of its qualities, which in
the form of the terms is ascribed to the animal part of man. But
it has long been the fashion among free-thinkers to maintain that
animals are endowed with reason ; and that man, as nowadays
not a few of them contend, is nothing more than an animal with,
a more developed reason. They are quite ready to accept this
definition, and to thank us for it as the complete expression of
their own conclusion ; for with them man is neither more nor less
than a rational animal.

But when the Almighty made man. He did not rank him with
the animals, He completed the animal kingdom and then closed
that period of creation. He then opened another period, in
which He did not say, as He did in the successive creations of
the animal world. Let the earth produce the rational animal.
But he introduced a new and more solemn form of creation in
the words : " Let us make man ". And when man was made
from two distinct sources, his body from the earth and his
spirit from the creative breathing of God's will, the Scripture says :
" And man became a living soul ". He is called man and a living
soul, but not an animal. Man is never called an animal in the

* Cicero, De Legibtis, L. 11. c. viii.

lo ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

Scriptures in the simple and primary sense of the word, but either
in a comparative sense or with some addition ; as when St. Paul
speaks of the animal man, where he includes not the whole man,
but only the inferior as opposed to the superior man. Where man
is likened with the nobler animals for his nobler qualities, their
animality is kept out of sight.

Having a spiritual nature endowed with reason and capable of
divine things like the angels, but distinguished from them by the
possession of an earthly body, which he has in common with the
animal creation, man cannot be called an animal in the sense in
which the latter are animals. His soul is the form and vital prin-
ciple of his body, the mover of its actions, and the term of its
sensations. The soul contains and carries the body, not the body
the soul; so that when the soul departs, the body falls lifeless to the
ground, and dissolves into its kindred dust. It would therefore be
quite as reasonable to place man in the angelic genus because of
his immortal spirit, as to place him in the animal genus because
of his mortal body ; but in fact he belongs to a kingdom apart
both from the angels who have not bodies, and from the animals
that have not souls, and that after their death have no resurrec-
tion. St. John Chrysostom therefore attacks the Aristotelian defi-
nition of man, and that repeatedly and even vehemently. He
says that the pagan advocates of this definition are outsiders, and
that the Scriptures do not agree with them.

The celebrated French anthropologist, Monsieur De Quatrefages
tells us, that the question of the human kingdom as distinguished
from the animal kingdom has been long and seriously discussed
by the Anthropological Society of Paris. And he himself advocates
the distinction of the human from the animal kingdom on the
ground of the moral and religious faculties in man, of which there
are no signs in the animal kingdom. He observes that man has
the perception of moral good and evil, independently of all
physical welfare or suffering. That man believes in superior
beings who can exercise an influence over his destiny. And that
man believes in the prolongation of his destiny after this life.*

Let us here briefly sum up the broad distinctions between man

and the animal. Man has intelligence, the animal has but instinct ;

man has articulate speech, the animal is dumb ; man reflects and

knows himself, the animal does neither ; man is the subject of

*De Quatrefages, The Human Species, c. i.

ON THE NATURE OF MAN. ■ n

truth, the animal of sense ; man has the abstract notions of good
and evil, the animal has but the sense of pleasure and pain ; man
has conscience, the animal has no sense of responsibility ; man
knows God and believes in a world to come, the animal has no
knowledge of God, but after serving the requirements of man it
perishes utterly. The soul of man is an immortal spirit ; but, as
the Scriptures says, the soul of the animal is in its blood.

Although the body of man is formed of mineral substances, we
do not call him a mineral. Although he has vegetative powers,
we do not call him a vegetable. Although like the animals he has '^
flesh, bone, and blood, yet outside the schools, you can offer no
greater insult to a man than to call him an animal. To call him
a rational animal will not help the matter, because his common
sense tells him that as an animal he is not rational. Schools of
[philosophy argue out the conclusion, that a rational animal must
necessarily have a soul, but this commits what is most substantial
and essential in the composition of man to an inference : and to
an inference which both the materialist and the pantheist will
promptly deny.

Leaving the Aristotelian definition, then, to the schools that
prefer it, I cannot but think the method of the Scriptures, of the
Councils, of the Fathers and the Catechisms, which present man
to us as a composite creation of soul and body, with the soul as
the form of the body, to be far the more philosophical. It pre-
sents to us the complete idea of man in the comprehension of his
genus and the distinction of the species, with the due relation of
the superior or spiritual part of man to the inferior or material
part of him. It likewise provides at the outset of all controversy
against giving the ground in common to the theories of materialists,
pantheists, and other erroneous speculators on the nature of man.

Although Plato has given us a wild and fanciful theory of human
creation, which is as extravagant as that of the Gnostics, he has
nevertheless given us a correct definition of man as a soul in-
vested with a body. Although some of the Fathers use the
Aristotelian definition, yet not a few of the weightiest have defined
man to be an immortal or an intelligent soul served by an
organized body. St. Augustine, for example, says that "man is
a rational soul using an earthly and mortal body ".* This mode
of definition is given, with some diversity of terms, by Origen,

* S. August., De Moribus Ecclcsice Cath. c. xxvii. n. 52.

12 ON THE NATURE OF MAN

Arnobius, St. Methodius, St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St.
Ambrose, and St. Gregory the Great.*

Seeing the use made of the Aristotehan definition by the ma-
teriahsts of France, at an early period of this centur}', the cele-
brated Viscount de Bonald wrote a defence of the form of definition
here adopted that is worthy of attention. " I venture," he says,
"to assert that this definition, 'man is an intelligence served by
organs,' presents the first of creatures under the noblest, simplest,
and most extensive point of view ; that it brings all that man is
by nature and by reason within the compass and prevision of an
axiom of science. It expresses the two substances of which man
is composed in their union and distinction. It exhibits both the
principle and the moral reason of their union, and expresses the
superiority of the intelligent soul over the body, as the soul is
ordained to command and the body to serve."

We may remark, however, that if the author had expressed the
two substances instead of leaving them to be inferred from the
properties of intelligence and organization, his definition, like that
of the Fathers cited above, would have been more perfect and
complete. But his remarks on the Aristotelian definition are
worth listening to. "The definition," he says, " that calls man a
rational animal is not sufficient to distinguish that noble creature,
especially in days where there is a disposition to maintain that
animals are endowed with intelligence and reason. This defini-
tion reverses the order of the faculties, putting the part of man
that receives movement before that which gives movement. It
reverses the eternal order of being in putting matter before spirit.
But the definition that puts the intelligent part first, and that
designates man by what is noblest in him, makes the intelligence
the master, and the corporal organs the servants ; and reminds
the man that he must cultivate his intelligence to maintain the
natural superiority of the soul over the body ; and that he must
exercise the bodily organs to make them serviceable to his intel-
ligence ; in short, that he ought not to suffer them to behave like
a riotous mob, and to usurp the place of intelligence." t

But to know man truly we must know what is noblest in him,
and what is the final object or end for which he has received
that noble gift. We should have a very defective knowledge

* See Klee's History of Dogmas.

+ De Bonald, Recherches Philosophiqucs, c. v.

ON THE NATURE OF MAN 13

of the horse or the dog, if we knew nothing of their relations with
man. We should have an equally defective knowledge of any
instrument or machine, if we knew not for what object or purpose
they were invented. Not to know the ultimate object or final
end for which man is created, is to leave the principle of his con-
stitution unaccounted for; whilst to know him in his ultimate
object is to know him in his first principle. The noblest thing in
man as a creature is the image of God, and he is created in the
image of God because he is made for union with God. The
knowledge of this is the science of human life.

The profane speculators, whose theories of man we have
quoted, think to know him best when they separate him as a
subject from his object, when they detach man from God ; but
this is like separating the earth from the sun, it leaves us in the
dark. We must get above these never-ending disputes and
opinions, which come of refusing to hear the voice of Him who
made man, and who alone has the perfect knowledge of what He
has made, and for what purpose He has exercised His creative
power. "Man partakes of all creatures," as Theophylact
observes, "and he is the most perfect of them; but there is some-
thing in him yet more sublime."* It is this something in him yet
more sublime which can alone explain his nature, and what that
is we must go to his Creator to learn.

In the first chapter of Genesis we read : " And God made the
beasts of the earth according to their kind, and cattle and every-
thing that creepeth on the earth, after its kind. And God saw
that it was good. And He said : Let us make man to our image
and likeness ; and let him have dominion over the fishes of the
sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth,
and every creeping thing that moveth on the earth. And God
created man to His own image ; to the image of God He created
him : male and female He created them. And God blessed them,
saying : Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it."
Then to show that man is made of two distinct substances, the
one earthly, the other spiritual, the sacred Scripture adds these
words : " And the Lord God formed man of the slime of the
earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man
became a living soul ".

Here is a creation distinct and apart from that of the anima

• Theophylact, In Lucam, c. x.

14 ON THE NATURE OF MAN

world, of a being who receives dominion over that world. It is
most clearly stated that each order of the animal world was created
after its kind, and in none of those kinds is man included. After
all the kinds of animal life are created, there is a pause, and
then the last epoch of creation is introduced, and before man is
made, there is a solemn deliberation of more than one person in
the Divine Creator. The Father of all things speaks to an equal
within Himself, who is also man's creator. We hear the words :
" Let us make man to our image and likeness ". The Divine
Artist moulds the body of man, not from some pre-existing animal,
but from the finer particles of the earth. His spirit is a separate
creation, nearer to God as spirit is more like to God. This
creative act is expressed by the term breathing, as expressing
both the formation of the spirit and the communication to that
spirit of spiritual light and life. Man rose up from the earth " a
living soul," after the image and likeness of God. He received
more than a natural life, he received that life of grace that
brought him into a living communion with God as his final end.

The Sacred Record carefully adds the words : " To the image
of God He created him, male and female He created them " ;
making it clear against all Rabbinical or Mahometan cavil, that
the two sexes were equally created to the image of God, and have
consequently one and the same divine end.

Here then we come at the true dignity of man, as well as to
his chief distinction. The image of God enters into the composi-
tion of his nature, and is therefore ineffaceable. This noble
prerogative exalts him into an order so immeasurably above that
of the animal world, that there can be no kind of equality between
them. For as every part of the man belongs to his personality,
it shares in his highest prerogatives. But his spiritual nobility
ascends higher in degree in proportion to the grace and benignity
with which the Sovereign Lord of man exalts this image by His
grace into the likeness of the Eternal Majesty, in raising him from
virtue to virtue. Every other distinction fades before the
grandeur of this divine resemblance, for which the image of God
is the natural preparation. But this likeness is a supernatural
gift, for it is far above the force of nature, and is implanted as
a living seal from the divine light upon the faith of man, and as
a fiery impress from the divine charity upon his soul, that he
may be able to love God above all things.

ON THE NATURE OF MAN. 15

The prerogative of bearing God's image in his soul constitutes
the capacity of man for receiving His likeness, and of coming into
union with Him. Proclaimed to be his chief distinction at his
creation, it is repeated on other solemn occasions, that it may be
always kept in sight. In recording the genealogy of the race of
Adam for the first time, the Scripture begins with this heading :
" This is the book of the generation of Adam. In the day that
God created him, he made him in the image of God." When
the sacredness of human life was first violated by Cain, the great-
ness of the crime was shown to consist in the violation of God's
image. " Whosoever shall shed man's blood, his blood shall be
shed; because man was made in the image of God." The Book
of Wisdom associates this image of God with the soul's immor-
tality : " God created man incorruptible, and to the image of his
own likeness He made him ".

Taking this profounder view of the nature of man, St. Basil
defines him to be "a rational creature made to the image of his
Creator ".* St. Gregory of Nyssa defines him as " a creature of
God endowed with reason and made to God's image ".f Although
St. Athanasius begins his descriptive definition of man from his
animal nature, he takes the highest theological measure of him.
" Man," he says, " is an animal endowed with intellect, and with
a sense of the divine mind, although mortal through the spoliation
of the body. He is intelligent through the principality of the
mind as he is a partaker of the Divinity." % St. Augustine, in like
manner, places the dignity of man in the image of God. " Great
indeed is man's dignity," he says, "because he bears the image of
God, and heboid's God's countenance within him, and through
contemplation has God ever present with him."§

But the Psalmist says : " Man when he was in honour, did not
understand : he was compared to foolish beasts, and was made
like to them ". He was exalted in honour above the animal
world, which was subjected to his dominion, but by deserting his
spiritual dignity he makes himself like the animals. On this text
St. Basil has a comment which shows how great man is when he
cleaves to God, and how degraded when he cleaves to his own

* S. Basil, Hcxameron, Horn. 10.

t S. Greg. Nyssa, Orat. i. in Verb. Faciamus horn.

J S. Athanas., De Communi Essentia, n. 53.

§ S. August., De Spiritu et Aninia.

i6 ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

inferior nature. " Man is a great thing," he says, "and a precious
thing is the merciful man ; he has his excellence and dignity in
his own constitution. What earthly thing besides him is made in
its Creator's image? He has power and command over every
living thing, on earth, in the air and the waters. He is a little
lower than the angels, because he is united to a body that God
made from the earth, whereas He made His ministers a flame
of fire. But man most certainly knows his Creator, for God
breathed into his face, and gave him through that breathing some
part of His grace, that like might know like. Yet when he was
so greatly honoured as to be created in God's image, when in
greater honour than the heavens, the sun, or the stars — for what
image of God have things without mind or will ? — in this great
honour he did not understand. He neglected following his
Creator that he might be like to Him, and became the slave
of his cupidities, and was compared to foolish beasts, and became
like to them. It is the heaping of folly, it is a bestial want
of sense, for man made in God's image, to have no care to under-
stand the great and many mysteries dispensed for his advantage.
When he forgets these, he discards the heavenly image to take up
with the earthly one." *

How shall we draw the distinction between the image and the
likeness of God in man ? These are two distinct terms, and as
St Augustine remarks, God would not use two distinct terms one
after the other to express one and the same thing. We have no
right, observes St. Gregory of Nyssa, to accuse the Scriptures
of putting a second word without intending a second meaning.
An image is a distant resemblance ; a likeness is a resemblance in
life. We have the image of a man in his statue, it is like him in
form and proportion, but the statue is devoid of life. We have
the likeness of a man in his son, who resembles him in life as well
as in form. The image of God is formed in the constitution of the
human soul. But the likeness of God, which rests in resemblance
of life, is derived from God through the implanted gift of His
divine grace, which is an element above his nature, and by
responding to which, man is raised to a supernatural life in God.
The image of God is according to man's reason ; but the likeness
of God is according to the divine gift. The image is according to
truth ; but the likeness is according to love in the truth ; for truth
* S. Basil, Horn, in Psalm xlviii.

ON THE NATURE OF MAN. 17

is form, and love is life. Man is in the image of God, therefore,
in so far as he is rational ; and in the likeness of God in so far as
he is spiritual.

Let us speak first of the image, and then of the likeness. The
image of God is expressed in the one and threefold character of
the soul. We must here lay down the fundamental principle, that
spiritual unity is perfected in distinction. What is incapable
of distinction can never have that rich and high order of unity
which embraces perfect distinction of number in perfect unity.
Boetius made the profound remark, that there is no perfect unity
without plurality. Plurality is essential to intellectual and moral
life. Three united in one forms a more absolute order of unity
than the rudimental unit which is incapable of distinction. Hence
the maxim that every triune is perfect. The difficulty of realizing
this truth to the understanding arises from the obtruding of
material images through the imagination when we are thinking
of spiritual life. Yet there are many reflections of this unity in
plurality in nature. For example, a triangle presents a more per-
fect unity than one of its lines, a circle than one of its points,
a cube than one of its planes. The features of the human
countenance in their entire harmony are more expressive of the
unity of life than any one of them taken separately ; but if
there is internal division it will be otherwise, because the
countenance reflects the soul. This unity is the secret of the
beauty and sweetness of spiritual faces.

God is not a solitary Being. He has an infinite society in His
own divine nature. His action is infinite. His knowledge of
Himself is infinite. His love of His own most perfect Being and
Intelligence is infinite. Here are three infinitudes in one perfect
nature. The first principle of God's infinite action is His power ;
the terminal of His knowledge is His wisdom ; the terminal of
His power and wisdom is His goodness. His power is infinite,
His wisdom is infinite, and His goodness is infinite; yet these
three distinctions exist in the one infinite spiritual nature and
indivisible substance of the One Eternal God. But power is not
knowledge, nor is knowledge will ; the will moves, knowledge is
the law of movement, power is the source of movement. With-
out the three nothing can be effected, nothing can be perfected
in spiritual life and action. If you think of God as He is
almighty and unchangeable in Himself, although He moves all

1 8 ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

things, that is His power. If you think of God as all-seeing, all-
providing, and all-judging, that is His wisdom. If you think of
God as all-loving, compassionate, and merciful, that is His good-
ness. To the Father we ascribe power, to the Son wisdom, and
to the Holy Spirit goodness. The Father is the fountain of
wisdom and goodness as well as of power. The Son is the gene-
rated wisdom inseparable from that power and goodness. The
Holy Spirit is the goodness breathed in love from the Father and
the Son, and is inseparable from that power and wisdom.

The Father is the fontal principle of all. His perfect know-
ledge of Himself is one absolute and complete conception,
which constitutes the Word of His power, and is another self
within His bosom — one with Him in substance, and co-equal
with Him. The Word of the Father is His Son, the express
image of the Father's substance, and the character of His glory,
born eternally of His contemplation. In contemplating the
whole perfection of His Being in His Son, the Father infinitely
loves the Son, and the Son the Father ; whence from the Father,
and through the Son, and "therefore from the Son as well, the
Holy Spirit proceeds in that infinite breathing of love, the third
Person of the Sacred Trinity, in whom the perfection of the
divine life is completed. For the Holy Spirit is co-equal and
consubstantial with the Father and the Son. Through the
Father's power all things are created ; through the Son's wisdom
all intelligent creatures are illuminated : through the Holy Spirit's
love all spirits are perfected that partake of His sanctity, whether
in Heaven or on earth. Yet, though we ascribe these works to
the three Divine Persons severally, they are each the work of the
whole adorable Trinity, whose operations are inseparable.

Profound beyond the intelligence of every created intellect is
the unfathomable mystery of the Holy Trinity ; and he who
searches into its Majesty will be overAvhelmed with its glory.
Yet, although the Holy Trinity is the mystery of mysteries, and
the source of all the mysteries that prove the limitation of our
reason, a certain knowledge of that mystery is vouchsafed to our
faith. Our first preparation for that knowledge is laid in the con-
stitution of our soul as created in the image of God ; but the
revelation of that mystery is given to our faith. The best of the
ancient philosophers obtained a certain perception that the soul
of man is one in nature and three in powers; but when the

ON THE NATURE OF MAN. 19

mystery of the Divine Trinity became fully revealed to us, the
light of that unspeakable mystery enabled us to see with clear-
ness the triune constitution of our own soul ; and, to use the
words of St, Augustine : " Whilst we see the trinity in ourselves,
we believe without seeing the Trinity of God ".

For in the human soul there are three fundamental powers in
one spiritual nature, and this constitutes the soul in the image of
God. In the Holy Trinity there is a fontal principal of all
things, which St. Athanasius calls " the treasury of life and intelli-
gence ". And in the human soul there is the receptive mind,
endowed with the light of principles, and stored with all the truth
and images of truth that have been presented to its wonderful
capacity. This fontal mind the Fathers call the memory, which
is not the mere faculty of remembering, but the treasury of the
mind, out of which we call things by remembering. This store-
house or treasury of light and truth, this memory, is the first of
the three powers of the soul.

But it is one thing to have this treasure of light and truth in the
mind, it is another thing to bring it out by conception or thought
into our understanding, so that we may see with our understanding
what is contained in our mind ; just as it is one thing to have a
truth in our mind, and another to see it in writing before our eyes.
For as it is one thing to have a truth in our mind, and another to
put it in words, so it is one thing to have that truth in our mind,
and another to have it in our understanding. But when we draw
a truth from our mind into our understanding, that which is in
the understanding is the word or image of that which is in the
mind. Observe, for instance, when any one calls your attention to
something that you ought to know, you search your memory, that
something you at last see, and then you say : Now I understand.
This word of understanding is an image of the truth in your
mind. The understanding is the second power of the soul, and
is generated from the first.

As the Father by His intelligence contemplates His infinite
wealth of perfection, He generates His Word, the eternal image
of Himself, so the mind or memory of man produces the power
of understanding, that interior word of our soul which we call our
conception, or our thought, which is the living image of things.
This animated picture of things conceived in the understanding
from the mind, St. Augustine calls "the son of thy heart ". It is

20 ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

the spiritual generation of the word of understanding from the
truth stored in the memory.

But whatever good we understand through our mind, we love
with our will. Thus, from the treasury of our memory, through
the act of our understanding, our will, which is our third power, is
set in motion. But this third power of our soul resembles the
third Person of the Blessed Trinity. For from the Father, who
is the fontal treasure of the Trinity, and from the Son, who is the
Word or image of His infinite intelligence, proceeds the Spirit of
love, who is the final term of the divine operations.

As the Father loses nothing by what He communicates to the
Son, so our memory loses nothing by what it communicates to the
understanding, but is always fertile. As the Holy Spirit neither
diminishes the Father nor the Son in proceeding from them,
neither does our will diminish by its love either the light of
truth in our memory, or the word of truth conceived in our
understanding, but each fertilizes the other.*

These three powers, the memory, understanding, and will, act
together in the one simple and indivisible substance of the soul.
The memory is receptive of truth, the understanding does not
conceive the truth without the will, the will does not act without
the understanding. And although in imperfect souls these three
powers are unequal, and act unequally, yet, as St. Augustine ob-
serves, in perfect souls they act equally. This equality is the
secret of that peace and harmony which reign in perfect souls.
For the love of the will and the contemplation in the understand-
ing are at one with the most perfect good presented to the mind.
But when we compare the trinity of powers in the human soul
with the Trinity of Persons in God, to quote the words of an
ancient Father : *' God is so far above the human soul, that in
Him all goodness and the sweetness of all goodness is from Him-
self; whilst in the creature, both what he is and the whole manner
of what he is, is from God ".

From the image of God in man let us pass to the likeness. This
likeness is a life-like resemblance to God. The image of God, as
we have said, is the natural preparation for His likeness, which is
supernatural. The first foundation for this divine likeness is the
supernatural gift of faith, and the inspiration of hope ; but the
likeness itself is in the supernatural gift of charity, giving to the

• See Bossuet's admirable Sermon Sur la Saitttc Triniti-.

ON THE NATURE OF MAN. 21

soul the life of divine love. When these gifts are freely accepted
by the mind and will, and freely worked with, they draw the soul
towards God in faith, hope, and charity, whereby we enter into
the light of eternal truth, are inspired with trust in God's promises,
and are animated with the love of God. The love of God is the
life of the soul, and then faith becomes the light of love, and hope
looks to the consummation of that love.

St. Gregory of Nyssa has so well expressed the difference
between the image and likeness of God, that we shall here abridge
his words: "The image," he says, "is in creation, the likeness is
in election. As we have the image of God already, that image
calls upon our will and choice to seek His likeness. Yet, unless
God gives us the power, we can never ascend to His likeness by
our own strength. He makes us to be like Him by giving us
the power to become like Him. But he has left to us the task
of working ourselves into that likeness; and that we may not
lose the praise that is its due, He has left to us the reward of that
likeness. If you see a good portrait, a faithful representation
of the original, you give your praise to the artist more than
to the work ; and that you may have the praise of it rather than
another, God has left it to you to form yourself to His likeness.
As it is from God's image that you are endowed with reason,
it is by His likeness that you are made good. When you hear
Christ saying : * Be ye perfect, as your Heavenly Father is
perfect,' you know that He invites us to become His likeness.
. . . Whence comes grace? How art thou crowned? If thy
Creator gives thee everything, how art thou to reach heaven?
He hath given thee one resemblance. He has left the other
incomplete, that by perfecting thyself thou mayest become capable
of receiving His reward. How then are we to be made like to
God ? Through the Gospel ; for what is the being a Christian
but the being made like to God, even as far as nature can re-
ceive the likeness ? But how canst thou put on Christ unless thou
receive the mark of Christ ? Unless thou receive His baptism ?
Unless thou accept the garment of incorruption ? " *

The object of an image is to carry us to its original, and its
significance is in what it represents. St. Hilary says in his pro-
found work on the Trinity, that " as the sovereign imprints his
image on the coin, so God imprints His image on man, with a

* S. Greg. Nyssa, Oral, in verb. Faciamus hominem.

22 ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

likeness proportioned to the depth of the impression".* But
the life of God is love, and the likeness of His life is love in the
living image looking towards the divine original. We are only
like to God in the degree of charity which God implants in grace,
and by which we love Him in virtue of that grace. The image
of God is therefore transformed into His likeness in pro-
portion to the earnestness with which we draw near to God in
our affections, and thereby receive more from Him of the prin-
ciple of life. But the true test of the amount and intensity of this
spiritual life of divine love, is less in our sensibilities than in the
calm vigour of our will, as it enters more completely into the
will of God; is less in the consciousness of ourselves than in
the consciousness of having God with us ; and in the greater
subjection of our nature to God, proving the generous devotion
of our love.

The two enemies of this divine likeness are pride and sensuality.
Pride turns from God and looks to self; in its venial form it
disturbs the divine likeness, in its virulent and mortal form it
utterly effaces that likeness. The sensual life, which is the carnal
form of selfishness, blurs, defiles, or utterly effaces the bright re-
semblance with the disordered stainings of concupiscence. For,
as St. Augustine says with his usual profundity : " It is not
because a man remembers himself, knows himself, and loves him-
self, that he is the image of God ; he is truly the image of God
in so far only as he looks towards his Original, and reflects
that Divine Original of whom he is the image. He is like to
God in so far as his memory, understanding, and will look towards
God, and move towards God."

St. Thomas gives the three degrees in which we move
towards God in these terms : " First, there is the appetite to
know and love God that is formed in our nature. Secondly, there
is the actual or habitual knowledge and love of God, formed by
grace in our soul. Thirdly, there is the soul advanced to the
image and likeness of God's glory. The first image is in all men ;
the second is in the just; the third is in the blessed." t In this
world the likeness of the just to God is still obscure, because
the soul reflects not the divine vision ; but in Heaven the
blessed have the obscuring veil removed, and the likeness will be

• S. Hilar., Dc Trinitatc, L. II. c. ii.

t S. Tbom., Sum. i. q. xciii. a. i. ,

ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

n

perfected ; as St. Paul says : " We shall be like to him, because
we shall see him as he is ".

We must not however suppose that God is like us because we
are like to Him. We have received but a created, communicated,
and limited likeness, and that not in a divine but in a human
subject. The One All-perfect Being cannot be compared with
any subject, however good and wilightened, for every created
subject is external to His infinite perfection. On this essential
distinction the Book on the Divine Names ascribed to St.
Dionysius speaks as follows : " The theologians say, that God,
the Being who is very being, the Being above all, is like to no
one. But He gives likeness to them who turn with all their power
to Him who is above all definition and reason ; and the force and
virtue of this resemblance attracts created things to their Creator.
It must therefore be said, that they who are formed to the image
and likeness of God, have resemblance to God, but not that God
is like to them. For even man is not like his picture." *

But the picture is like the man; and although God's image in man
is at an infinite distance from what God is, yet because the Most
Holy Trinity has formed that image in our creation, and has esta-
blished that likeness by His grace, they cannot but be most noble
and excellent, especially as the three powers of the soul reflect in
their degree the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, and imitate
their action. The Persons of the Holy Trinity appeared therefore
at our creation, saying with one accord : " Let us make man to
our own image and likeness ". The three Persons of the Holy
Trinity are heard again in our regeneration, when we are baptized
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost
For as in the beginning the Father created all things through the
Son, and the Holy Spirit, brooding over the waters, brought all
things to their order and perfection ; in like manner for our
restoration Christ tells us : " Unless a man be born again of water
and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God ".
For by the Father's power the Son both creates and regenerates ;
by His own wisdom the Son enlightens, and by the Holy Spirit's
love life is made perfect. Moreover, in all subsequent sacraments,
sacramentals, and prayers, that raise the soul above herself, and
brighten and transform her into greater likeness of God, the three
Divine Persons in one God are unceasingly invoked.

• De Divinis Nominibus, c. ix.

24 ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

Here then we behold what grand relations exist between the
mysteries of the human soul and the eternal mysteries of God.
We begin to comprehend with some clearness how man is a
subject created for an object ; how God Himself is the true object
of man, and the final end of man ; and how mysteriously man is
created and prepared for that final end. Bearing God's image
from our Creator, and raised anew to the lost likeness of God by
regeneration, the inward man recovers his just relations with God,
and the beginning of that eternal life for which he was made.
At our creation the mystery of the Divine Trinity was obscurely
revealed, but in our regeneration, that greatest of mysteries, the
key to the mysteries of our own soul, was fully revealed to us.
Then the Son of God replaced us in our original dignity, directed
us anew to our final end, and repaired in us that image of the
Trinity, which we received in our creation, but which sin had
weakened and deformed.

Nevertheless, there are still profound mysteries in the soul of
man, of which God alone holds the secret. Of this every one
who gravely reflects within himself is conscious. The more he
examines himself the more will every one become conscious that
the interior man is something incalculably greater than the
exterior man ; and that he has even already lights, aspirations,
and relations with an invisible order of things that extend to
what is infinite and eternal. In those invisible elements of his
soul he discovers the higher principles of his humanity, com-
pared with which the material body, and the interests of this
visible world, are but the prison walls and the chains of a
captive, who yearns for that open freedom in which all his
powers may reach their object, and all his affections their
exercise.

To separate what is mysterious in man from what is obvious,
and to attempt his reconstruction by a process of elimination, is
the most unphilosophic, the most unscientific, of all methods
of investigation. The materialists know well, that in their own
proper science of matter, they cannot put aside the unknown
qualities and quantities for which they are unable to account. If
some scientists give their thoughts so exclusively to material
things, and immerse their minds in material imagery, until they
can no longer recognize the operations of spiritual natures, not
even their own; there is another class who pursue their mental

ON THE NATURE OF MAN 25

abstractions, and who live so exclusively on the phenomena
of their mind and imagination, that they no longer recognize
material substance. Turned from God upon themselves, and
involved within their own shadows, they see not half themselves ;
confounding the subjective mind with the objective truth, they
sink into the miserable gulf of pantheistic delusion. But whether
by dwelling exclusively in sense and losing sight of soul, men
become materialists ; or whether by dwelling exclusively in mental
abstractions men lose sight of matter, and become phenomenists ;
or whether by confounding subject with object, they become
pantheists ; they in each case present us with a monster at which
our reason revolts, and which our common sense refuses to
recognize as man. The positivists, by a similar deficiency of in-
tellectual light, confound God with universal humanity, but with a
humanity that they pronounce to be mortal in every part, yet they
impiously set up this humanity for our deification. What can we
learn from these dreary, barren, and inflated speculations, but that,
as we have said already, we stand in need of Christian humility to
know both God and ourselves ?

The Almighty, whose happiness cannot be increased, because
He is perfect, and cannot be diminished, because He is un-
changeable, from no necessity, but from pure goodness, has
created two orders of intelligent spirits. Their happiness depends
upon their acknowledging the grace of their Creator, through
which alone they can be glorified. He has been pleased to give
them in their first creation an intimation in shadow of what,
through His divine condescension. He would finally make them.
In contemplating those countless spirits, He ordained that some of
them should remain in their purely spiritual nature, whilst others,
in their creation, should be clothed with earthly bodies, causing
earth itself to vegetate and be animated with life, by the force of
the spirit to which they are united. Through this intimate society
of body with spirit in one life, God has shown the possibility of
a future condition in which man shall be glorified. For if the
Lord and Giver of life can frame the rude elements of this earth
into a body, receiving life from the spirit that dwells within it as
a mansion, it cannot be impossible for Him to exalt the spirit
herself into a living abode of His Holy Spirit, and to make her
the partaker of His glory. If, again, such a pleasure and a joy
can be obtained in this mortal life from the presence of the soul

26 ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

in the corruptible body, how much pleasure and joy may we not
expect from the presence of God in the soul.

If, in this present dispensation, our spirit is brought down into
the humble society of an earthly body, and is made a spectacle
to the universe of intelligent spirits, God has nevertheless decreed
to bring all the souls that do His will, together with their glorified
bodies, into the society of those angelic spirits who have kept
their purity ; and what we have received less than those spirits in
our creation will be made up in the grace of glorification. Upon
both orders of spirits, upon the angels who stood firm in their
purity in Heaven, and upon the souls placed in earthly bodies in
this world, their Divine Creator imposed a command and a law
for their obedience. He commanded the angels to stand firm in
the truth, and not to desert their principality ; He commanded
the souls on earth to look up to Him, and to seek Him with all
their mind and spirit ; that the one order by not falling from
Heaven, and the other by ascending to Heaven, might advance
from the condition in which they were created unto the Supreme
Good for whom they were created, and might dwell everlastingly
together with the God by whom they were created.*

* See Hugo de S. Victore, Dc Sacramcntis, pars. i. c. i.

LECTURE II. -

WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

"Jesus said to them : Whose image and inscription is this ? They say to
him : Caesar's. Then he said to them : Render therefore to Caesar the things
that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." — Matthew xxii.

THE coin of the realm is the creation of the sovereign ; it
proceeds from his authority and is called in by his authority,
in token of which it bears his image and the inscription of his
name. The soul of man is the spiritual creation of God, and,
what is incomparably greater, the soul is created for union with
God, of which she bears the sign in the image of God and
in the inscription of His law, graved with light upon her spirit.
The image and name of the sovereign are cast on perishable metal,
but whilst the metal lasts it asserts his sovereign claim. The soul
received from God bears His image and His law, the signet of
His sovereign claim upon that soul. The coin of the sovereign
bears his image on the surface ; the image of God is in the inmost
constitution of the soul, the soul herself is that image, and the
light of God's law sealed therein is the direction of the soul to
her Divine Original.

" Let us make man to our own image and likeness." In these
creative words we read the constitution of the human soul : " Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy
whole soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind ". This
is the interpretation of the law written within the soul. The
inscription explains the image.

It is an obvious principle that whatever is made, is the subject
of its maker. It is another universal principle, founded in the
nature of things, that whatever is made, is made for something
greater than itself. The inventor of a machine makes it for the

28 WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

use and service of man. The builder of a house looks to man's
accommodation. The planter of a tree has his own use or pleasure
in view. The artist makes not his picture for itself, but to give
instruction and delight, to awaken the feeling of beauty or sublimity
in the human mind. The author has not the book for his end,
but the enlightenment of his readers. All material things are for
the service of spiritual life. That the meat is for the body, and
the body for the life, is beyond dispute or question. That the soul
of man is made for something far greater than herself, every one
can see who chooses to compare what the soul is with what the
soul desires. She has the capacity for infinite things ; she feels
their attraction, and her own impulse towards them. Her great
wants are the measure of the great things for which she is made.

The principle that everything is made for something greater than
itself involves the great principle of final causes. The doctrine of
final causes is but the expression of that principle ; for the final
cause of anything is the object or end for which it is made, or for
which it is done.

The exclusion of final causes from scientific investigation is the
destruction of what is most noble in knowledge, and the cause of
a great amount of that infidel theorizing which besets the scien-
tific men of our age. Nothing has so much darkened the specu-
lations of the sophists of recent times, who bring up the works of
God against God Himself, as this rejection of final causes. They
do not cease to exist because excluded from thought, and to reject
them from consideration is to strive against one of the most fun-
damental and indestructive principles of common sense ; but it
is the character of sophistry to contend against common sense.

We cannot understand the nature of anything until we know
the ultimate end for which it exists ; that end is both the reason of
its existence and the reason of its being what it is. It has some
object for which it exists, and it is formed and shaped with refer-
ence to that object. To make anything or do anything without an
object and end is to act without reason or intelligence. And to be
ignorant of the relations established between any subject and its
final object, between created beings and the ends for which God
destines them, is to be ignorant both of the first and of the last
reason of their existence. For the object or end for which any-
thing is made is the first consideration, the first intention in the
mind of its maker, who shapes and forms his work with a view to

WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. 29

that end. The man who devised the locomotive steam-engine
contemplated the rapid movement of a train of carriages from
place to place. This was his immediate object. But his final
object was to transfer passengers and goods from place to place
with rapidity and security. Everything in the engine, road, and
carriages was so devised as to be the most effective to this end,
and the end explains the construction of the engine and all the
rest. It was not made for itself, but for the service of man,

I have deliberately used the name sophist instead of philosopher
for those sciolists who reject the consideration of final ends from
their investigations into the nature of things, because philosophy
is the love of wisdom, and wisdom is concerned with the first and
final cause of things, or with the Supreme Good. The distinction
is a very old one. And Varro classed the old philosophers in
writing their history according to their view of the Supreme Good,
that is, according to their view of the final end of man and the
creation. But whoever rejects final causes is not entitled to be
called a lover of wisdom, because he rejects both the wisdom of
things and the wisdom of their Creator, and so cannot have them
in his knowledge.

God made the earth for man. He made it for the first stage of
human life, and as a place of probation for a higher and nobler
life in another sphere of existence. The earth with its surround-
ing sphere supplies him with his body, his habitation, his nourish-
ment, his instruction, his pleasure, and his trials. As a place of
probation and discipline, it must, if it is to accomplish that object
present him with difficulties, both mental, physical, and moral ;
and with obstacles to be overcome ; and with things to be denied
as well as with things to be accepted ; and with pains as well as
pleasures ; because all these things belong to probation and
moral discipline, and to the exercise of the virtues, of which faith,
hope, patience, self-denial, humility, and charity are the chief.

But man is made for God, He is therefore so formed in all
his spiritual nature as to make him capable of union with God,
But this union he obtains as a free agent, and by using the means
which God puts at his disposal. These means are partly natural
and partly supernatural, the natural being subordinate to the
supernatural, which alone can bring him to his final end. God is
therefore the final as well as the first cause of man, and it is this
which explains his nature, and gives to him his nobleness. And

30 WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

as the inferior creation was made for the service of man, and man
was made for God, God is the ultimate end of all things. Hence
the Scripture says that "God made all things for himself".

Nothing demands to be more carefully distinguished than the
difference between intermediate objects and ends, and the final
object and end of man ; because intermediate ends are but the
means placed at our disposal to help us towards our final end.
All moral errors spring either from our taking intermediate objects
for our final end, or from taking the wrong means for gaining our
final end. We either blindly mistake the one true and final
object of our soul in practice, choosing the less good for which we
were not made for the greater good for which we were made ; or
we take other means of our own choosing, in place of those which
God has provided, and which alone are effective, to bring us to
God as our final end. But in either case we become failures.

The whole wisdom of things is in their final end, which is the
first and last reason of their existence. Without this knowledge
we are incapable of rising to the grandeur of God's eternal plan,
and have no key to His providence. We cannot understand the
divine patience that waits upon the works of His wisdom, and
gives to the things of time their due course of time to obtain their
ultimate results in eternity. Looking at each thing, or each
order of things, in their mere subjective condition, and as though
they were isolated, whereas they are all related, our minute
philosophers, having no wise regard to their final ends, are men-
tally engaged in separating all that God has united in mutual
relations and just dependencies, and destroy the cosmical order
of the universe. This is the mortal weakness that cleaves like a
blinding veil to a great deal of modern science, than which nothing
has done more to bring down the minds of men from their just
elevation, and to eclipse their views of the amplitude and the
splendour of God's design in the creation. Not only do these
minute philosophers make an isolation between the creation and
its final cause, but they isolate it from its history, whether the
records thereof be human or divine, and so reject the study of
God's providence. Yet are they ever ready with their small facts
and large imagination to reconstruct both man and the universe.

Let us return to the final cause of man, and consider how God
has prepared his nature for its final end. The difference between
what we are at this moment, and what with our inmost aspirations

WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. 31

we long to be, must be measured by our capacity. How won-
derful is the capacity of the human mind for truth ! Who can
circumscribe its boundaries ? It extends over worlds and their
contents, over time and its histories, over science with all its facts
and theories. It reaches up to truths that are infinite, unchange-
able, and eternal. But how comes a creature so limited in time,
place, and substantive existence, and so changeable withal, to
obtain perception of eternal and unchangeable truth ? We see
that truth as from a distance, we salute its presence from afar off,
we desire its nearer approach, we confess that we are still far
away from its perfect illumination. And yet this eternal truth
seems less distant from our mind than from our power of under-
standing.

Our will, that free and spontaneous power of the soul to desire,
to resolve, to act, and to love, in our present condition, is in some
respects more capacious than our mind. Its object is both truth
and good, and we can desire more truth than we see, and long
for more good than the truth we know reflects to us. The object
of the will is unlimited good ; unlimited truth is welcome there-
fore to the will, as the bright shadow cast towards us from unlimited
good, awakening our desire for its presence. The light of faith
is the argument of eternal things unseen ; hope stretches with
desire towards those things unseen ; and love embraces the
eternal good as yet unseen with the desire of possession. The
love for eternal good reveals both the capacity and the appetite
for that good ; makes us wise in the judgment of the truth that
leads to that good ; and wise in using the means that advance us
to our supreme good. Our capacity of soul, therefore, for loving
infinite good is in nowise more limited than our capacity of mind
for infinite and eternal truth. Yet by a certain contact of soul
with the grace of eternal good, we can often embrace more with
desire and love than we can see with our understanding.

However he .may hold to the world by the body, man is cer-
tainly not made for this world, were it but for this reason, that
his soul is so much greater than this material world with all that
it contains. The world in fact is made for him. He is housed in
a mortal body that with all repairing lasts but a short time. His
soul ripens whilst his body decays. An intellectual creature is of
another order of being than things without mental light, as a
person among impersonal creatures there is no comparison between

32 WIfV MAN' IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

them. The Scriptures, the philosophers, the poets, the examples
of history and the whole voice of human experience, unite in
teaching us, that after man has gained every object of ambition in
this world, his hopes are defeated by his success. He has simply
gained the knowledge that the wants of his soul are of another
kind. In the hour in which he enters into himself, if he have
such an hour, the truth comes back to him with all the force of
experience : " What does it profit a man if he gain the whole
world, and lose his own soul ; or what shall a man give in
exchange for his soul ? "

The loss of the soul is not the loss of her existence, but the loss
of her good. To lose that eternal good for which the soul was
made, is truly to lose the soul, which is but a poor subject when
deprived of its objective good. Yet the image of God in that soul
cannot perish, for that would be the destruction of the soul.

Secretly or openly, that image of God will make its presence
known through all encumbrances, and will confess its Divine
Original, even in reprobation tending towards greater reprobation.

If prosperity in this world fails to bring back that image to God,
sufferings and privations may achieve what prosperity has failed
to do. When this world is loved too much, it obscures the image
of God ; when loved with passion it effaces His likeness ; and as
this image and likeness are the noblest qualities of manhood, the
very manhood of man is lowered and debased in proportion to the
lowering of that image and the effacing of that likeness.

Let us put this clearly once for all, in doing which we shall
borrow the language of a profound theologian. The human soul,
created by God, and capable of God, finds nothing among created
things, however rich or beautiful, that can really make her happy.
They cannot enter into competition with the Divine Goodness, who
is pleased in His condescension to be the one predeterminate object
of human happiness. If you impress the image of a seal in soft
Avax, and then put some other kind of seal upon that which has
already been deeply imprinted, you will not succeed in giving that
new impression, but will only spoil the one already made. But if
you take the first seal, and fit it into the impression anew, it will
exactly correspond in all its reliefs to the hollows left by the first
impression. Impress that seal with greater force, and the image of
that seal will have greater depth and vividness. So in creating the
soul of man, God imprinted His image upon her as with His own

WJIV MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. n

divine seal, producing His likeness, and leaving those hollows in
her spiritual powers, that can only be filled up and fitted to make
her happy by the reliefs of His own divine perfection ; and when-
ever the impression of the image from that divine seal is renewed
with greater force, the form of that divine image enters more
sharply into the soul, and penetrates to greater depths. But if
you let any created thing try to seal its image in your spiritual
nature, so as to aflFect you with the attachment of a greater
affection, the beautiful image of God will be blurred and spoiled ;
and the soul, made neither of wax or other earthly matter, will
feel herself oppressed and deformed. This is the reason why a
man may abound in wealth and earthly delights, and yet be subject
to trouble, disgust, and sadness. But what sort of happiness is that
which cannot keep trouble, disgust, and sadness at a distance?*

The reason of this is as clear as it is exalted, and is thus ex-
pressed by St. Thomas : " The will is the human appetite, and the
object of the will is universal good, and this is not to be found in
any creature, but only in God ; because no creature has anything
more than a certain limited participation of good".t If man were
made for this world, he would not be made in God's image but in
the world's image, and his three concupiscences would constitute
his three principal virtues, which, instead of disordering, darkening,
and staining his soul, as all men confess they do, would be his
three crowning excellences, and, what is horrible to imagine, they
would take the place of faith, hope, and charity in perfecting his
character, giving peace to his powers, and redounding to his praise.
But as the soul is not made in the world's image, but in God's
image, God alone can perfect the soul. St. John had this truth
in view when he exhorts us in these words : " Love not the world,
nor the things that are in the world. If any man love the world,
the charity of the Father is not in him. P'or all that is in the world
is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence of the eyes
and the pride of life, which is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the coucupiscence thereof, but
he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever."

There is a very simple test for proving that man is not made for
himself, and can never be his own good. When he has separated
himself from God, let him be separated from this world ; shut him

* Brienza, S. Tomaso Spiritual Direttore, p. i, c. xviii.
t S. Thorn., Sum, i, 2, q. 2, a. 8.
3

34 WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

up in solitude, deprive him of society, of books, and of external
nature, and he will pine and starve in misery and inanition.
Feed him as you will, and still the question will be how long his
mind will last without breaking down for want of objects on
which to rest. Why do men weary of monotony, and weary the
more if they have quickened their minds with large culture ? It
is because after a short time every limited thought and object
wearies the soul that is made for an infinite good. Man is the most
dependent of all beings, because his capacity is so great in com-
parison with what he possesses. Whilst his body is dependent on
God's providence in a thousand ways, his soul is dependent on
God Himself for its light and spiritual good. Not being an
object to himself, man is always in search of an object to which
he may attach himself, on which he may rest, and in which he may
find content. I say content, because content is fulness, and fulness
leaves no suffering void. But man is the subject of God, bearing
God's signature upon him as the wax bears the image of the seal,
or as the mould bears the figure into which the molten gold is
poured. The wax is subject to the seal, the mould to the gold,
and man to God, who alone can content him, because He alone
can fill his powers.

An empty vessel boasting its fulness is the figure of a soul that
looks to herself for her completion. To strive to fare well upon
herself and her environment is the very delirium of human pride,
and reminds us of the miserable Ugolino gnawing with everlasting
hunger upon the bare and bleeding skull of his destroyer. Self-
love with her hungry offspring finds but a bare table when she
turns to feed upon herself, and finds her chief fare in the bitter
diet of disappointment. "Thy own wickedness shall reprove
thee," says the Prophet, "and thy apostasy shall rebuke thee.
Know, then, and see that it is an evil and a bitter thing for thee
to have left thy God." When the soul turns herself from the
Divine Fountain of light and the Eternal Source of her spiritual
life, and trusts to herself for light and life, she suffers those pains
of thirst and pangs of want that strain her spirit to the very roots,
and harass her with the divining fears of greater miseries to come.
No soul was ever made to live upon herself.

Because man is made for God, there is in his spiritual essence
the rational image of the Supreme Life, the Divine Intelligence,
and the Sovereign Will of God : and by this constitution of his

TVHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. 35

spiritual nature he is fitted and prepared to partake by grace of that
good which God is by nature. He is made to the image of God
in his reason that he may become the likeness of God in his
love. In reflecting God's truth, as a mirror reflects the light, he
reflects the order of God's law, that he may delight in the virtues
that make his own will resemble the will of God. For God made
him thus, that he might know Him, and knowing Him might
love Him, and loving Him might delight in Him, and delighting
in Him might come to the open vision of God, and to that
intimate union with Him which is the final end of all desires.

Wherefore the image of God is given to our nature to make us
capable of God, and of eternal things. Framed in the substance of
the soul, that image is a mirror, but a mirror that is living, spiritual,
and highly sensitive. It is sensitive to the touches of that divine light
of truth which is itself a luminous image of God ; it is sensitive to
the touches of divine grace, from the finger of God's Holy Spirit,
which give the sense of God ; and thus we obtain the deeper sense
of His divine presence, and the more intimate consciousness of
His loving communication. When, therefore, the warmth of His
charity comes with the ray of His light, the soul is moved in her
inward sense to ascend towards the Divine Author of her gifts,
and is gratefully inclined to return love for love.

The sun shines upon our mortal bodies in three beneficent
elements, giving light to the eyes, warmth to the system, and
electric vigour to the nerves. Yet warmth comes not always with
light, nor energy with warmth. The three elements are distinct
from each other, at least in the medium through which they pass.
So from the Father of Lights, from whom is every good and perfect
gift, we receive the light of faith, the life of justice, and the warmth
of charity. The Psalmist has drawn the grand distinction
between the gifts where he says : " The light of Thy countenance is
sealed upon us, O Lord; Thou hast given joy in my heart".
The light seals the supernatural image of God upon the natural
image already in the soul, and the gladness fills that image with
the joy of life in the warmth of charity. Again, in his penitential
Psalm, after recovery from his fall, the Psalmist prays : " Create a
clean heart in me, O God; and renew a right spirit within me".
He asks that his heart, the seat of God's love, may be created
clean, but for his spirit he only asks that it may be renewed
in rectitude. Rectitude of spirit comes of right reason, as Hugo

36 WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

of St. Victor observes: but cleanness of heart comes of perfect
charity.*

When we weigh the value of things by truth rather than
imagination, we find the image of God in spiritual natures to be
the grandest of all creations, and that in virtue of this image one
individual soul is a nobler production than the sum of all the
creations that have not this image. For by what test of ex-
cellence is any creature to be valued, except by its nearer resem-
blance to its Creator ? We are not merely to estimate that image
of the Holy Trinity by what it is now, but much more by what it
is capable of becoming when it receives its fulness from the Holy
Trinity.

Every work of God bears some signs of the character of the
Divine Workman, such as its nature is capable of receiving. Even
in the material creation we find certain traces and shadows of the
power, wisdom, and goodness of God, and traces that are
unmistakably the work of the Holy Trinity. The composition
of every work rests upon a threefold basis. Thus we see the
threefold dimensions of space, and the threefold dimensions
of all matter resting in space ; the three elements in light ; the
three primary colours ; the three fundamental sounds or tones in
music ; the three fundamental states of matter, solid, fluid, or
aerial ; and so on through all nature, and through all art which
copies nature. In material things such traces of the Holy
Trinity can only be remote and lifeless. But when we come to
the free and active power, intelligence and life in the human soul,
we see the spiritual impress of the Holy Trinity in a spiritual
substance, the three powers in one life, capable of divine and
eternal things.

We may now resume much of what we have said in the instruc-
tive words of St Augustine. " The rational creature," he says,
" whether angel or human soul, is so constituted that it cannot be a
good to itself. But if the changeable soul will turn herself to the
unchangeable good, she will make her will good, and will be thus
made happy. But if she turn herself from the unchangeable good,
she will become miserable. To turn to this good is virtue ; to turn
from this good is vice. It is not our nature, then, that is evil,
because the spiritual creature has rational life. Even when she

• See Hugo de S. Victore, De Sacramentts, p. 6, c. I

WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. 37

deprives herself of that good to partake of which is happiness, and
becomes vicious, the spiritual creature is still preferable to even
the most perfect of material things, better even than the light of
our eyes, which we know to be material. The least of spiritual
creatures is incomparably more excellent than the most perfect of
bodily things, not by reason of quantity, for that belongs only to
bodies, but in virtue of a certain force by which the spiritual
creature ascends to a much greater elevation, higher than the
imagination, because the imagination is drawn from the senses,
and the mind exercises itself upon it. Even bodies, and inferior
bodies, such as earth, water, and air, become better by partaking
of what is better, as when the light, for example, illuminates them,
or heat makes them vegetate. But the spiritual and rational
creature is made better by partaking of her Creator, and by
cleaving to Him in pure and holy charity. When souls are wholly
devoid of this charity they become darkened, and after the manner
of a spiritual nature they grow hardened. Hence, unbelieving
men are darkness, but when they turn to God, through a certain
force of illumination they become light. And to such the Apostle
says : ' Ye were darkness, but now light in the Lord '." *

God has so configured our soul to His image, that our memory,
which St. Augustine calls "the womb of the mind," and St.
Isidore " the treasury of things," is nearest to God in commu-
nication. Our understanding actively seeks knowledge through
the receptive mind or memory ; and our will cleaves in assent
to the truth which its Divine Author presents to us. This is
the triune form of the soul, the three united powers in one spirit,
that makes her the image of the Holy Trinity. The mind or
memory receives the truth, the understanding elicits the truth and
makes it knowledge, the will cleaves to the truth by its assent.
When we follow this truth upwards to its divine source, it leads
the soul on to God, and the truth itself is some reflection of the
purity, the beauty, and the grandeur of God's Eternal Majesty.
Every nature has its proper motion in its proper element. To the
birds of the air wings are as feet, they soar at will on their light
pinions into the regions of light, where they expand themselves in
gladness. God gives wings to the soul in the gift of light, by the
help of which she rises at will into the regions of divine truth, where
her heart may expand in joy in the warmth of eternal charity.

* S. August., De Gratia Nov. Test. c. xxxiii.

38 WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

Yet nothing can rise by its natural force above itself; to effect
this a greater force must descend from a higher power. Man is
by nature capable of God, but by nature alone he cannot enter
into union with God. He must first receive a divine element,
that through its means the image of God may be brought to His
living likeness, and he may have that within him which may
dispose him for union with God. For as mere created nature is
at an infinite remove from the divine perfection, the divine
element of grace must first descend into the soul, and enter into
her life and action, and set her face to face with God, and give
her a motion towards God, before she can be rightly and duly
disposed for union with His divine goodness. Nature, again,
cannot have the sense of that of which she does not possess some
element. God Himself must first condescend to His creature,
and give her a certain supernatural element, a certain force and
strength, whereby she will not only receive a sense of God, but a
power also to rise above herself and move towards Him. Divine
light and power must give us a foundation for the sight and sense
of divine things. "He hath given us a sense," says St. John,
" that we may know the true God, and be in His Son."

But the divine order established in human habits is not the same
as the natural order; here we must take St. Bonaventure for our
guide. As we are the natural image of God, understanding is
generated from the mind or memory, and from memory and under-
standing love proceeds. But in our reparation the divine order is
established in us after a different manner. The light of faith planted
in our mind does not generate complete understanding, but only
obscure knowledge. We see darkly as through a glass. Yet
light and grace generate a complete goodwill in us, so that we
embrace by love incomparably greater things than we see with our
understanding. But love itself is a great quickener of the under-
standing, which, when it is prompted by a great love, sees much
further into divine things than when only acting by its own power.
Still love always embraces incomparably more than the under-
standing can reach. The Scripture therefore says, that " the eyes
of God are upon them that love Him"; and that the Eternal
Wisdom enriches them that love Him, and fills their treasuries.
Hence the divine precept to the man of faith : " Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul, with
all thy strength, and with all thy mind ". We love God with our

WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. 39

whole mind when with a good will we adhere to Him in faith ;
we love God with our whole soul when with a good will we hope all
things from Him; we love God with our whole heart when with a
good will we love Him above all things and in all things. By the
force of this threefold love of God, this living likeness is generated
in us, it penetrates the essence of the soul, and radiates through
the man in the sweet and gentle flame of charity.*

Thus, whilst man is created to the image of God he is con-
stituted in the divine likeness by the grace of the Holy Spirit-
But in falling from obedience he fell from subjection, and in
losing his dependence on the divine gifts he lost the gifts them-
selves. Then the divine likeness faded from him, and even the
natural image of God was wounded by his fall, obscured in its
lineaments, and weakened in its rational and moral strength. He
ceased to be that integral man who is completed in design
through his initial union with God, until through a wonderful
dispensation of divine mercy and justice God restored him to
dependence on His goodness.

Of these two states of man, our English St. Aelred of Rivaux
gives a luminous description in the following terms: "The
rational creature is alone capable of beatitude; made to his
Creator's image, he was formed for adhering to God whose image
he is ; this is the one good of the rational creature, for, as David
sings : ' My good is to adhere to God'. It is not the body but the
soul that adheres to God, who has planted three powers in her,
through which she may be the recipient of eternity, the partaker
of wisdom, and the enjoyer of sweetness. These powers are
memory, understanding, and will or love. The man created in
these three powers to the image of the Trinity, had his memory
retentive of God without forgetfulness ; his understanding given
to know God without error, and his love embracing God without
cupidity for other things. And so he was blessed. But after he
had thirsted for a likeness of God that was in direct contradiction
to God, and had resolved through curiosity to obtain this closer
resemblance, it most justly fell out that he came down into
unlikeness. Thus was God's image corrupted in man, although
not utterly destroyed : he still has memory, but it is prone to
forgetfulness ; he still has understanding, but it is subject to error ;
he still has love, but it is given to concupiscence." f
• S. Bonavent., 2 Sentent., d. 16, q. i, et alibi.
t S. Aelred, Speculum Charitatis, in Bib. Max. Patrum.

40 mffV MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

An image however deformed has still the character of an
image, and a tendency to imitate its original, if not rightly, then
wrongly, offensively, and as it were in caricature. In a dark,
preposterous, and sinful way, he takes himself for his object in
place of God, and under a veil of seeming good he mocks the
supreme order of things. The vices take in him the place of the
virtues, veiling their unlawful objects under the appearance of
better things. Pride affects divinity ; curiosity affects the love of
truth ; cupidity wears the semblance of charity ; avarice pretends
the pursuit of good; ambition affects eternity; and indolence
beatitude. We are so essentially made to imitate God, that
our very sins, the fruits of our perverted powers, affect to
imitate the just action of those powers when they tend to God
as the truth, goodness, and beatitude of our souls. It is the
perverted use of our powers in the face of God's light and law
that reveals in a special manner the deformity of our sins, and the
dark depths of their guilt.

Although you have already heard St. Aelred contrasting the
just and beautiful order of the man of grace with the disorder and
deformity of the fallen man, you will not regret listening to a yet
more luminous extract from his great contemporary St. Bernard.
He says : " That Blessed and Eternal Trinity, the one God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the Supreme Power, Wisdom, and
Benignity, created to His own image and likeness a certain
trinity in the rational soul, which bears a resemblance to the
Supreme Trinity. This resemblance consists in the memory,
understanding, and will. God created the soul in this form to
abide in Him and partake from Him, that man might be happy.
But this created trinity chose nevertheless to fall away in the free
exercise of its will, rather than to adhere to God in the free accept-
ance of the grace of its Creator. Through suggestion, delight, and
consent, man fell from his high and beautiful trinity of power, wisdom,
and purity into a degraded and contradictory trinity of infirmity,
blindness, and uncleanness. For the memory became weak and
powerless, the understanding dark and imprudent, and the will un-
clean. . . . Yet that Most Blessed Trinity, remembering His mercy
and forgetting our guilt, did nevertheless repair the grievous,
darksome, and unclean lapse of our nature. The son of God,
sent with this view from the Father, gave us faith ; and after the
Son, the Holy Spirit was sent, and He gave us charity; and

WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. 41

through faith and charity hope arose of returning to the Father.
Through this trinity of faith, hope, and charity, that blessed and
unchangeable Trinity brought back our inconstant, fallen, and
miserable trinity, as with a trident, from the deep void to our
lost happiness. Faith illuminates our reason, hope lifts up our
understanding, and charity purifies us." *

The divine power that operates in the soul, and exalts her
native powers with the supernatural virtues, we call grace, because
it is the free and unpurchasable gift of God, to which nature can
assert no right or claim. It comes of God's pure condescension
and benevolence. The Prophets, Christ our Lord, the Fathers,
the Church in her prayers as well as her teaching, all instruct us that
this divine gift of grace comes of the direct operation of God's
Holy Spirit within the soul. In creating the soul of Adam, God
breathed from His Holy Spirit into the face of the man, and he
arose a living soul, having the life of grace from God, through the
communication of His Holy Spirit. For our reparation Christ
breathed into the face of His Apostles and said : " Receive ye
the Holy Ghost ". By this solemn act the Son of God recalled
the breathing of the grace of the Holy Spirit into Adam, and
gave power to the Apostles to cleanse human souls from sin, and
to restore them to the grace of the Holy Spirit. By the same
expressive mode of action, God as our Creator gave His Spirit to
sanctify the first man, and as our Redeemer gave His Spirit to
repair the ruin of the fallen man, and to sanctify him anew.
St. Cyril of Alexandria says : " As we are formed to the likeness
of our Creator through partaking of His Holy Spirit, it is
manifest that no one can obtain God's likeness without partaking
of His Holy Spirit. When our Redeemer would restore God's
likeness to man, He also breathed on His disciples, and said :
' Receive ye the Holy Ghost '. What this partaking of the Holy
Spirit gives to man is the perfect expression of the image of the
divine substance." f

In describing from what man falls when he loses the state of
grace, St. Paul has given us a perfect description of this divine
grace, and of its operations and effects in the soul. " Who," he
says, "were once illuminated, who have tasted the heavenly gift,
and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, have tasted the

* S. Bernard, Serm. 45, De Varia Trinitate Dei et hominis.
t S. Cyril Alexand., Thesaurus, apud Petav.

42 WBY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

good word of God, and the power of the world to come." A
saint has said with beautiful truth, that if reason is the eye of the
soul, faith is the pupil of the eye. And we may add that if the
spiritual sense is the heart of the soul, the grace of divine love is
the life of the heart. Faith illuminates, love tastes the heavenly
gift, and the power of the world to come. How by present grace
we taste the power of the world to come, St. Peter has explained
in equally exalted language. He says : " All things of divine
power which appertain to life and godliness, are given to us
through the knowledge of Him who has called us by His own
l)roper glory and virtue. By whom He hath given us most great
and precious promises ; that by these you may be made partakers
of the divine nature ; flying the corruption of that concupiscence
which is in the world."

The gift of charity makes the soul of the just man godlike.
The principle of that charity is the divine action of the Holy
Spirit in the soul ; and hence the Fathers, following St. Peter, call
it a certain partaking of the divine nature, not of the substance
but of the operation of the Holy Spirit. St. Thomas teaches that
the grace which makes man pleasing to God, not only exalts him
with supernatural virtue to a higher mode of existence, but that
it is the root and principle of the infused virtues. He argues
that, as the natural light of our reason is something beyond our
acquired virtues, which virtues are the ordering of our nature
according to the light of reason, so that light of grace which is a
partaking of the divine nature is something beyond the infused
virtues, which derive themselves from that light, and are regulated
with respect to that light, as the Apostles says: "Ye were once
darkness, but now light in the Lord ". From which the Prince
of theologians concludes, that as by grace we are regenerated to
become the sons of God, the grace which is the principle of this
regeneration is implanted in the substance of the soul, like a life
within a life, or a soul within a soul. For as man participates of
divine knowledge in his mind through the virtue of faith, and of
divine love in his will through the virtue of charity, so, after
a certain similitude, through regeneration or a new creation, he par-
ticipates of the divine nature within the nature of the soul. And
as the powers of the soul, which are the principles of her acts,
flow from her essence, so from the grace of regeneration, re-
ceived into the essence of the soul, flow the graces of the virtues

WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. 43

into her powers, exalting those powers to perform their super-
natural acts.*

This exposition of the Angelic Doctor deserves our deep medi-
tation. It is an admirable exposition of the way in which the
grace of justification, that is, of divine charity, is fitted to the
nature of our soul, to her unity of essence and trinity of powers.
It shows in a special manner, that as the unity of the soul's
essence is the principle of the unity of her powers, so the unity of
the divine grace of justification is the principle of the unity of
the supernatural virtues that are exercised in those powers. It
also enables us to enter into the profundity of St. Paul, when he
calls charity the bond of perfection. Long before St. Thomas, the
great St. Leo had said, that "the plenitude of justice, and the sum
of the virtues, spring from that love whereby we love God ".f

What is life without love? Apathy is deadness, enmity is a killing
bitterness, love is the wealth of the soul, making her rich with
life and glowing with good in proportion to the goodness of that
life to which she devotes her own. What we see instructs us,
but what we love works a change in us. Our love is both an
active and attractive force; it draws to us the qualities of the
object that we love, those qualities change our qualities, and
make us like the object that we love. The life we love enters
into our life and changes our spirit and character into something
of the goodness, greatness, and dignity of the object to which we
give our love. With love our soul expands, and is enlarged with
the greater life that attracts our affections, and is purified with
its purity, and the soul goes forth out of herself to live in the
object of her love. God is love, and to love God is life.

Pride is not love, it is pure selfishness, and selfishness is
destructive of love : pride is the very reverse of love, it is the
most spurious and ungenerous of all affections. Pride is not
only the most selfish, but it is the most unreasonable and most
odious of affections, the effect of which is to contract, and blind,
and harden the soul, which makes her equally unreceptive both
of truth and of good. But love is both generous and ingenuous,
opening the soul to bring forth whatever is most dear or secret
within her, and bringing it into the sunshine of the divine life of
God, which makes that soul dear to Him.

Concupiscence is not love, it is but a vile and degrading

* S. Thorn., Sum. i, 2, q. iio-iii. f S. Leo, Servi. dc S. Laurent.

44 WJ^y MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

passion that gives sway to the body over the soul. Concupiscence
defiles and debases the soul, disorders her powers, and weakens
them. But that true love for which man was created, and which
is alone worthy of him, is charity, which begins in God, and
tends to God, and embraces, purifies, and perfects every love of
the creature. It gives a divine motive, and power, and a certain
sweetness of its own even to the natural affections, and has its
final end in God.

God is charity ; charity is His nature. His life, and the unceas-
ing action of His goodness. His charity moving through His
Holy Spirit moves in all the charity that circulates in the soul
from her first movement towards divine things. It is a most
sacred and unspeakable operation, whereby a divine state is
established in us. Hence St. Paul calls charity "the more
excellent way," and "the bond of perfection," and "the fulfil-
ment of the commandments". Man is perfected therefore by
the love of God : this love puts his relations with God in their
just, due, and happy order, and regulates his love and duty
towards every person and thing that is less than God.

We are now in a position to take the measure of manhood by
the one true standard with which man is measured by his Creator.
The man of nature is the man begun ; he is still in the rudi-
ments of manhood. The man of grace is the man brought into
living relations with the supreme object of his existence, his soul
is in communion with the good that perfects his nature. He is
regenerated to that life for which he was created, and having
in him the rudiments of spiritual life, as a living subject he
begins to advance towards God as his living object. The man
of faith and charity continues to perfect his manhood with greater
light and charity, raising his life to higher life, and approaching
nearer to the greater good ; and when the hour comes in which
God calls him, he leaves his mortal frame behind him, and
purified from the dross of his mortal life he enters into the vision
of God ; where the flame of his charity is attracted by the divine
flame of God's eternal charity, and the man is completed and
consummated in perfection according to God's eternal plan. Yet
he is not absolutely perfected to the full measure until his body
is raised from the dust, and regenerated, spiritualised, and
immortalised, and made the responsive instrument of his glorified
soul.

WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. 45

This is the true progress of man, and God is the object of
his progress. The men of this world, who are truly so called
when they rarely look beyond it, never tire to speak of human
progress. Yet strange to say, they invariably omit the object,
aim, or end of that progress : progress with them is the accumula-
tion of natural knowledge, human inventions, the fruits of
industry, and the resources of earthly pleasure — all that, in a
word, which the man leaves when he quits the body. Even
the pagan philosophers were wiser in principle when, conscious
of their immortality, they sought the supreme good of the soul.
The path marked out by God for man's advancement is from
his first rudimental and natural existence to the final filling up
and perfecting of his nature in the highest life and divinest good.
This is not merely a personal but a social advancement, begun
in the great society of God's Church here below, where the Son
of God reigns, and the Holy Spirit operates, and the whole
society mutually help each other onwards ; and from the Church
on earth the advancement is to the society of God in Heaven,
and the company of the angels, and of the spirits of the just
made perfect. Progress in any other direction than the way
of the just, whatever shows it may give to the imagination, with
whatever flatteries it may soothe the pride of life, whatever con-
cupiscences it may excite in the inferior man, with whatever
diversions it may amuse his vanity, is progress downwards. It
is a descent, and a shameful descent, from the appointed order
of human progress, and a failure from the divine standard of
manhood. This divine philosophy pervades the Scriptures, and
finds its confirmation in the constitution of the soul, in the light
of the mind, and in the deepest aspirations of our inward nature.
But nowhere has this divine philosophy of human progress been
more strongly inculcated than by St. Paul, who exhorts us to
advance from image to image and from likeness to likeness, as
from the Spirit of the Lord, that we may reach to the stature of
the perfect man.

The Scriptures draw a perpetual distinction between two
kinds of men, between the just and spiritual man and the carnal
or animal man. The one is raised to that height of manhood
which God designed for him, the other has descended to greater
or less proximity of life with the animals beneath him, to the
grievous deforming of his nature. For whilst the animals are

46 WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

in the due order of their nature, the man has left the due
order of his nature, whether he subjects his soul against his
reason to his animal propensities, or whether by the abuse
of his light he corrupts his imagination to his ignominy.

Let us sum up the attributes proper to man, which, when the
•will keeps them in their due order and exercise, give him the
becoming elevation of manhood. The first is the unspeakable
superiority of his soul over his body, a superiority founded in the
very nature of things, so that the subjection of the body to the
soul is the first principle of human order. The second is man's
attribute of reason, which requires him to be in all things reasonable,
to obey the truth, and to observe the law of reason. The third is
his conscience and sense of God, which commands him to be
obedient to the internal voice of God. But the fourth is his
noblest distinction, and that is the constitution of his soul in the
image of God, which reflects the Holy Trinity in his spiritual
nature, and gives him the capacity for God, and for the
reception of divine and eternal things. This living image of
God requires him to seek first the things that are above, and
not the things beneath him, that he may do justice to his nature,
and justice to God ; and that by seeking and obtaining the gifts
of God he may be transformed from a less perfect to a more
perfect image of God by obtaining the divine likeness. He thus
ascends from animal to reasonable life, and from reasonable to
spiritual life, by working with God to perfect his nature.

It is upon this standard of humanity, as held out by God, that
the Fathers take the measure of man. St. Augustine says : " When
a man adheres to God he is something ; but when he departs from
God he is nothing".* That is to say, man without God is a
subject without its object; his chief capacity, that for eternal
good, is empty and void ; without the end of his existence he is a
failure. St. Hilary writes in these searching terms : " What is so
difficult to find, or so great when found, as a man who keeps in
mind that he is made to the image and likeness of God ? The
man who attends to the divine word, who knows the reason of his
soul and body, and contemplates their origin and motive, under-
stands for what end they exist and were created. But the man
who neglects this knowledge loses his right to the name of man,
and is unworthy the name of man. For this reason, when the
• S. August. , Super Psalm Ixxv.

WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. 47

Prophets and Apostles have to speak vehement reproach, they
drop the name of man, who loses his chief properties with his
innocence, and change it to some other, such as horse, mule, fox,
serpent, or viper." *

St. John Chrysostom applies the divine standard of manhood
to man in a number of places. Commenting, for example, on the
character of Job, he says : " The profane who do not belong to us
are wont to define man. What is man ? Consult the definitions
of philosophers, and they will say that man is a rational and mortal
animal. But the Scriptures agree not with their definitions.
What is man ? He is just, irreproachable, truthful, departing from
evil works, so that what is not approved by the witness of good
works is not man. Such a one bears the stamp and form of man's
nature, but he is deformed by malicious intentions. Hear it from
the Prophet : * Man when he was in honour did not understand ;
he is compared to foolish beasts, and is made like to them'." f In
another homily the Golden-mouthed Doctor says : To have
a man's body and voice is not to be a man ; to be a man is
to have the soul of a man and the affections proper to a soul.
There is no sign more sure of a man having a soul than when he
loves to hear God's truth, as there is no greater proof of an
irrational animal soul than to despise God's truth.

The Prophet Isaias says of a populous city : *' There is not in it
a man ". Losing the courage of obedience at a trying moment,
they lost their reasonableness, and their manhood could not be
reckoned upon. The tendency of Inspired Truth is to contemplate
the carnal man as actually sharing the blind passions and degrading
habits of the beasts to which they are likened. For, as St. Gregory
of Nyssa remarks : " The man who comes down from his manhood
into an irrational and animal life, partakes of the habits of some
animal or other in whatever passion or vice he may suffer to
torment his soul, be it the deaf adder, the crafty serpent, the proud
peacock, or the dog returning to his vomit ". The Scriptures call
destructive men wild boars ; the sly and cunning are called foxes ;
despoilers are rapacious eagles 3 false teachers are likened to
ravening wolves ; and there is a yet more terrible comparison of
lascivious men with another example of the animal creation. In
short, the man whom the Scriptures regard as less than man is he

* S. Hilarius, Tract, in Psalm cxviii.
t S. J. Chrysost., Horn. ii. in Job

48 WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

who has descended below the dignity of his nature, and has lost
sight of his final end. St. Chrysostom judges the man by the soul,
and the soul by the grace and truth of which it partakes. Our Lord
Himself has given a like measure of humanity, where he says :
" Not in bread alone doth man live, but in every word that
proceedeth from the mouth of God ".

The Hebrew Scriptures have an emphatic way of expressing
the complete man, the man endowed with light and power from
above: they call him "a man and a man". Philo the Jew says,
in his Book on the Giants, that *' this double man has no reference
to the composition of body and soul, but it signifies the man
endowed with the virtues ". This twofold man is the super-
natural added to the natural man. This is what the Fathers
understand by it, as well as some of the Rabbinical writers. In
the Book of Numbers there occurs this text : " The man and the
man whosoever shall vow his vow to the Lord ". Upon which
Origen thus comments : " Why is the name of man repeated, as if
it were not sufficient to say the man who vows ? The Apostle
teaches that there is an exterior man and an interior man, and
that the interior man is renewed day by day in the image of God
who created him, whilst the exterior man is subject to corruption.
When we come to the perfect man, we come to the man who
accepts God's laws, and offers his vows to the Lord. But no
man can offer these vows unless he have something within
him, something even within his substance that he can offer
to God. The exterior man will not suffice to receive God's law,
nor can he offer his vows to God, because he has nothing worthy
of God ; but the interior man has that within him that he may
offer to God. In him the virtues dwell, in him there is know-
ledge and understanding, and the renewal of the divine image.
When he has regained the fair grace that he had in the beginning,
and has recovered the former beauty of the virtues, then he can
once more offer vows to God, and may not only be called a man,
but a man and a man. But he who does not cultivate the
interior man, who hath no care of that man, who builds not
himself in the virtues, who does not take to discipline, who is
not exercised in the Scriptures, such a one cannot be called a
man and a man, but only a man and an animal." *

St. Macarius of Egypt explains this twofold man in beautiful
* Origen, Horn, xxv. in Nunieros.

JVB-y MAN /S MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD. 49

terms : " If any man love God," he says, " God infuses His love
within him; and when once he puts a generous confidence in
God, God superadds the heavenly faith, and from this addition
he becomes a twofold man. Into whatever you offer in any
of your members to God, God mingles something of His own,
that you may do everything with purity, both in loving Him and
in praying to Him. This makes man of great value." * Omitting
the reasoning of St. Basil, which St. Ambrose likewise follows,
we will give his conclusion. " We have," he says, " the hidden
man inclosed within us, and after a certain manner we are under-
stood to be a twofold man ; for the common saying, that the man
is within us, is true. This doubling of the name of man to express
the perfection of manhood, of the man who is both the image
and likeness of God, is pre-eminently applicable to the humanity
of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one type and form of the perfect
man, concerning whom the Psalmist asks : ' Shall Sion say : A
man and a man is born in her ? ' "

These two men, the new, interior, and regenerated man, and the
old exterior man reformed by the new, are perfectly distinguished
and described by St. Paul. "That was not first," he says, "which
is spiritual, but that which is natural : afterwards that which
is spiritual. The first man was of the earth, earthly : the second
man from heaven, heavenly. Such as is the earthly, such also are
the earthly : and such as is the heavenly, such also are they that
are heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood
cannot possess the kingdom of God, neither shall corruption
possess incorruption." Again he says: "Put off, according to
the former conversation, the old man who is corrupted according
to the desires of error, and put on the new man, who, according
to God, is created in justice and holiness of truth". The old
man is not therefore destroyed according to nature, but reformed
according to God; and receiving the new man Christ into the
old man Adam, he becomes a man and a man.

You have now had placed before you the true type of manhood,
not as the world estimates man, not as profane philosophy takes
the measure of his dignity, but as his Creator has planned his -
nature in the view of his final end, and has provided for him the
means to accomplish that final end. He gives him first a rudi-
mental existence, complete, nevertheless, in itself, and distinct
* S. Macarius, Horn. xv.
4

50 WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

from every other; then He gives him a development through
the gifts of His providence ; then an advancement dependent on
His own will by the gifts of grace towards eternal things. Finally,
he is delivered from this world of probation, and if he has been
faithful, he enters into union with God as the Supreme and
Eternal Object of his inmost desires. Solomon has not hesitated
to express this union of the soul with God in perfect love, under
the allegory of a happy human marriage. Christ our Lord has
also described the entrance into the Kingdom of God under the
parable of a marriage feast. And to St. John the final union of
souls with God was portrayed under the figure of the marriage
feast of the Lamb.

It is the modern fashion of innumerable writers, and the
passion of still more innumerable readers, to contemplate human
life, in every mythical form, as being absorbed in the earlier
days of manhood in a struggle through difficulties, the object of
which is a happy union in which the purpose of hfe is gained, and
its trials brought to an end. How far these fictions most com-
monly are from the realities of life, and to what extent they falsify
the minds that widely indulge in them, and take them for the ways
of wisdom, is best known to those who have studied human life the
most. But this may be said with most certain truth, that the
happiest union of mortal with mortal, where each supplements
what the other requires, is a very faint, remote, and imperfect
figure of that union of the soul with God, in which the image of
God comes to its Divine Original, and every want ceases, and every
desire is accomplished.

And now, by way of conclusion, let us look at the law of human
progress through the eyes of St. Hilary. Earthly and imperfect
causes, he observes, have this character, that they are changeable.
Grief troubles joy, anger disturbs peace, offence interrupts good-
will, envy disturbs equanimity, and anxiety our sense of security.
When some appetite creeps into our weak and inconstant affec-
tions, we are no longer what we were. A sudden change comes
over us and turns us from what we were into what we have so
suddenly become. But the blessed God is perfect He needs no
progress, because there is nothing wanting to Him. He has no
beginning; He knows no change; He is ; and what He is comes
from no other source than Himself. He is ; and is in Himself,
and with Himself, and to Himself, and is Himself unto Himself,

WB Y MAN IS MADE TO THE IMA GE OF GOD. 51

and all things are unto Him. Nothing can be added to Him,
because He Himself is all, and all things are unto Him.

From this best and most benevolent beatitude, through His
Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, all creations of invisible and
heavenly creatures are made, and also the constitution of spiritual
with corporal creations. He gains nothing to Himself from these
creatures ; no one hath need of what He gives away from Himself,
or profits by what He imparts to another. But the things that
profit us come from an external source ; what heals our wants is
not what we have, but what we have hitherto lieen strangers to.
The God from whom all things are has no need, therefore, of a
single thing that He creates, but He has created them all for them
who are born into life. As it would be long to treat of celestial
creatures, let us speak of ourselves.

God constituted man, not because He required his service, but
because He is good, and made man to partake of His beatitude.
He perfects this rational creature in life and sense to share His
eternity. This is absolutely clear from His own words : " And
now, O Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but
that thou fear the Lord thy God, and walk in His ways, and love
Him, and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy
soul ; and keep His commandments, and His justifications, which
I command this day, that it may be well with thee ". God asks no
service of us but faith, innocence, and religion. He demands our
love and service, that through them we may be judged worthy to
be rewarded with His goodness and beatitude. But the com-
munication of His goodness, like the sun's splendour, the fire's
warmth, or the flower's sweetness, profits not Him who gives, but
him who receives. As he is not jealous of that good which with
Him is eternal, He takes us up to the sense and enjoyment of
that good.

Yet the good and perfect God gives not that good to us without
reason and measure. What He gives first to each one is his sense
and freedom of life, not imposing any necessity, that each one's
good and evil may be decided by law. Having created us from
benevolence to obtain beatitude. He has ordained our progress
to that beatitude through a just and innocent life. Were He to
withhold us from evil by putting a constraining necessity upon
us, what honour, what goodness could such a necessity deserve ?
Goodness is therefore offered to our free will and choice, and as

52 WHY MAN IS MADE TO THE IMAGE OF GOD.

the reward of free will, not as the result of a necessity uninspired
by law. Yet whilst our God invites and attracts us to good and
to upright living that we may hope to enjoy His goodness, He
adds pain and suffering to the deserting and despising of that
goodness, that as necessity could do nothing for us, the terror of
pain and suffering may act as a reasonable control of our liberty.
Liberty is given us in view of reason and in view of just reward,
whilst the unruliness of liberty is kept in order by the ordinance
of fear ; that whilst the hope of reward encourages us to will what
is good, the fear of vindictive punishment may dissuade us from
willing evil.*

Wherefore, to omit many things that might be said, after con-
sidering why man was made in the image of God, we point the
sum of this lecture in the words of St. Augustine : " Any one may
call himself a man, or think himself a man, but he who neither
obeys God nor fears Him is unworthy the title of man ". Or as
the Christian philosopher Boetius puts it more comprehensively :
" It comes to this : you cannot account him to be a man who is
deformed with the vices; for where goodness is abandoned the
man ceases to be ; unable to ascend to a divine condition, he
descends into the state of the irrational creation".! This also is
the conclusion of Solomon : " Fear God, and keep His command-
ments, for this is the whole man ".

* S. Hilarius, Ennaratio in Psalm ii.

t Boetius, De Consolatione Philos., Lib. IV. prosa iv.

LECTURE III.

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.
"And let him have dominion over .... the whole earth." — Genesis i. 26.

IF the Hebrew tongue was blessed with a name for God which
expressed His absolute Being, our own is happy in a name that
expresses His nature. For God and good are the same word with a
different spelling. God is the good, the one good, the absolute good,
the fontal good, from whom is all good that is or can exist. When a
certain person addressed our Lord as " good master," not knowing
His Divinity, Christ said to him : " Why askest thou me concerning
good? one is good, God ". If, then, we would use the Sacred Name
of God with reverent intelligence, we must fill it with its divine
sense, that it may have the habitual power of awakening our mind
and heart to the One Divine and All-perfect Good.

It is of the nature of an intelligent being to do all things for a
reasonable end ; and the nature of a good intelligence to do all
things for a good and wise end. But the God of infinite perfection
must always contemplate in His actions the most perfect end, and
that most perfect end is Himself. He acts not for a greater end
in the greatest things, and for a lesser end in the lesser things; but
He designs, creates, upholds, provides, and rules all things to His
own eternal glory. Whatever may be the subjective or the relative
value of His various works, taken in themselves, His act in them
is perfect, because of the perfect end to which they are ordained.
Yet God is not as man that He should covet glory : He is Himself
the perfect glory, to which nothing can be added, and from which
nothing can be taken. From His Divine Dignity and perfect Ma-
jesty comes the just and essential order of things, and this order
requires that the Author of all things should have the glory of all

54 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

things. As God is the First Cause of all things and the Exemplary
Cause of all things, He is also the Final Cause of all things. The
divine intention is the motive of creation, this intention is the end
contemplated, and the end contemplated is God Himself. He
is the beginning and the end of all, and therefore whatever He
creates that moves in its just order, moves as it were in a circle
having its beginning from God through His creative Word in time,
and moving through the course of time towards the same God as
its final end.

God is the reason of all created things, and this reason is three-
fold. As the first principle of all, God the Father is the First Cause
of all. In His Word or Reason are the intelligible forms of all
things, and therefore God the Word is the Exemplary Cause of all
things. As He is the Final Cause of all things, God the Holy
Spirit, the Perfecter, operates in bringing His faithful works to the
honour and glory of the Holy Trinity as to their Final Cause. As
the reason of all things, God imparts the light of reason to His
intelligent creatures, that in Him they may find the reason of their
reason, the final object and end of all their searches after truth and
goodness. This is expressed in the inspired proverb of Solomon :
"God hath made all things for Himself"; but to provide an order
for them who with perverse wills turn their reason away from the
divine reason, this clause is added to the inspired word : " The
wicked also for the evil day ".

It is because God is the final cause of all things, and all are made
for His glory, that He also contemplates an intermediate end of
His creation; and this end is to impart to His creatures, according
to their nature, some reflection of His Being, some vestige or
resemblance of His goodness. Material things reflect His Being
in their existence, intelligent creatures reflect His intelligence in
their reason, and just spirits reflect His life, beauty, and goodness
in their love.

If we contemplate the created universe as a whole, the whole is
made for God. If we consider it part by part, each part of the
great whole has also its special and immediate end ; for whatever
is inferior in the nature of things is ordained to minister to what is
superior. As the superior part of this world, and as the subject of
Heaven, man is immediately subject to God, and what is inferior
to man is ordained to the immediate service of man.

Yet whilst the inferior creation has its immediate end in the

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN. 55

nobler creation of rational souls, whose direct end is God Him-
self, this does not prevent the inferior creatures from representing
the being and goodness of God in what they are ; or from having
their final end in God. For although the material creature is
made for the spiritual creature, it is not the less made for the
Divine Goodness. For whilst the whole universe of created
things forms one grand construction, reflecting in its countless
dependencies and harmonies the manifold wisdom and glory
of God, each part of this wonderful construction is made with
reference to the whole ; and whilst each inferior part is subject to
what is superior, which gives an inexhaustible lesson to rational
man, the whole creation is one complete organization, whose
immediate end is the manifestation of God, and whose final end
is the glory of God.*

God alone has the supreme power and sovereign dominion
over all His creatures. He is the fontal source of all power,
authority, right, and rule. Human rights have their authority in
divine rights, and human dominion obtains its authority from the
divine dominion. The just laws that regulate and secure the
rights of man spring immediately from human reason and the
divinely constituted order of things, and these have their founda-
tion in the divine reason. But man's dominion over the earth,
and what the earth contains, is so familar to him, that he rarely
reflects on the origin of the authority with which he is invested to
wield that dominion. That God designed man to exercise this
dominion is visibly written in the volume of creation, in which
we see the aptitude of the sensible world to be subject to the service
of the spiritual creation, and the capacity of the spiritual creature
to subject the inferior works of God to his dominion and use.

But the right to exercise this dominion was a formal grant from
God to man, expressed by a sovereign decree of His supreme
authority. This grant is coeval with the creation of man, was
renewed after its forfeiture at the Deluge, and is contained in the
most ancient of legal documents. "And God said : Let us make
man to our own image and likeness ; and let him have dominion
over the fishes of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the beasts,
and the whole earth, and every creature that moveth on the
earth." And " God blessed them, saying : Increase and multiply,
and fill the earth, and subdue it ".

• See S. Thomas, Sum., p. i, q. 44, a. 4, q. 65, a. 2.

56 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

The dominion of the earth with all it contains was given to
man with the divine blessing. What is this blessing? It is
the fruitful influence which God sheds upon His creatures from
His goodness, giving them vigour, growth, and the power to
multiply. It is the fertilizing gift which augments the gifts of
existence and of vitality.

The key to the understanding of this world is the divine purpose
comtemplated by its Author ; it was designed for the training of
immortal souls for an eternal life with God. It is therefore en-
dowed with a great diversity of offices and aptitudes for this
purpose. Framed for the abode of man from the dawning of
his existence to the end of his probation, it is wonderfully fitted
and tempered to the requirements of his body, as his body is yet
more wonderfully fitted to his soul. It is provisioned with all
things good and suitable for his use, instruction, and pleasure.
After each order of creation had risen up into existence at the
Omnipotent command, "God saw that it was good". After the
whole visible creation was evolved from chaos and completed,
^' God saw all things which He had made, and they were exceed-
ingly good ". The whole creation, viewed in its manifold relations,
harmonies, uses, and dependencies, was a good exceedingly
greater in its unity than were the several creations viewed
separately. They were exceedingly good for the end for which
they were made.

But when God made man, He did not say that man was good,
because God Himself is the good of man. The good of man
is exterior to this world, and he can only reach that good by his
own choice, and by the free exercise of his will. But the
inferior creation was made good for the service and instruction of
man.

By one and the same decree of His sovereign will, God both
created man and gave to him and his descendants dominion over
the earth, to subdue it, and dominion over all the creatures it
contains, that they might do him service. The earth has no in-
telligence to know its existence ; its mineral treasures know not
their own wealth ; its vegetable glories have no consciousness ;
the animal world has no light of reason whereby to know its
Creator. The visible world knows not from what it exists, or
for what end it exists, or that it does exist. This knowledge God
has implanted in man for the whole creation that exists around

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN. 57

him. He is a will to the creatures of the earth, and, as it were,
a god to them. " The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness
thereof; the world and all that dwell therein." And the Lord of
the universe has made man to be His viceroy over every other
creature that the world contains. He is a mystery to them, as
God is a mystery to him. Nevertheless, he rules them within
certain limits ; he commands them, and they obey his will.

If a reason is asked for this grand dispensation, the profoundest
reason, as of all divine dispensations, is hidden with God in His
eternity. But even our human reason has light enough to see
that it is far more magnificent and glorious to God that He
should create intelligent beings with a capacity to exercise
dominion, and a power to rule the inferior creation, than if He
had reserved all power and dominion in this world to Himself.
To this we must add, that the responsibility imposed on man, as
the delegate of God's authority, constitutes a large element in his
moral training for the Kingdom of Heaven, where justice and
mercy reign supreme.

The parable of the master who called his servants and gave
them his goods, a portion to each, according to his ability, that
all might fructify them until he came to take the reckoning, may
be taken to illustrate the end for which God has imparted a
share to man of His dominion over the creation. And the
sentence pronounced upon their just or neglected stewardship
reveals the moral end of the plan upon which this human admini-
stration of God's creation is founded. "Well done, thou good
and faithful servant ; because thou hast been faithful over a few
things, I will set thee over many things ; enter thou into the joy
of thy Lord."

This delegated right of dominion over God's creations is not a
mere prerogative of human dignity, it is also a trust, to be exer-
cised in dependence on God, and with accountability to Him,
not only as a great element of moral training, bnt as a source of
moral worth, which is the true wealth of the soul. Yet over all
things God holds the dominion in chief, and to every created thing
He gives its force, its qualities, its limits, the order in which it
acts, or is acted upon, and His own overruling providence. But
to men He likewise gives His law, in which the rightful use and
ruling of His creatures is prescribed to them.

The action of God is clearly visible in the ordering of the

58 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

world ; and where the h'ght of reason is not utterly perverted, all
men at times feel His power in the creation. What but the con-
tinuance of God's creative will upholds the world in existence ?
What but His regulating providence makes the elements of the
world keep their place, their proportions, and their equable
balance, so admirably tempered to human needs ? What but
His will and wisdom have ordained all things in number, weight,
and measure ? What makes the earth and the orbs of Heaven
to move in their appointed courses? What makes the sun to
glow with a splendour softened to the requirements of human
eyes and human life ? What causes the moon and the glittering
stars to illuminate our night ? What causes the winds to breathe
in gentle gales, or to blow with purging vehemence ? What
makes the ever-changing clouds, those curtains from the solar heat
and revivers of the earth, to muster in their squadrons, and career
before the winds ; the showers to fall ; the streams to flow ; the
seas to agitate their purifying waves ; the earth to germinate in
flowers and fruits ; the air to feed the flame of mortal life ; the
waters to fertilize ; all nature to bring forth ? To give names to
hidden causes is to confess their existence, but not to discover
what they are. Science may trace the dependencies of things
upon each other, at least, on the visible side of them that is ex-
posed to human sight, and may follow the links of the lower end
of the chain of causation. But what, and where, is the primal
force from which all causation springs ? What primal force moves
all material things that are in their nature passive ? What keeps
them orderly, temperate, and measured in their movements,
whether worlds, or elements, or things that vegetate, or that move
with the force and harmony of animal life ? We may ask what,
and what, in vain, so long as we search for their causes in
material nature. The Divine Author of all is the first mover of
all, whilst He /is Himself immovable ; and the creation receives
its energies and modes of movement from the most tranquil, yet
ever-acting, will of God, " who maketh His sun to shine over the
good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust ".

There is no method of thought more disloyal to truth, no style
of speech more uncongenial with the religious sense, none more
deceptive in its results, than that low method of thought and
expression so common in the world, that makes material nature
the seat of those laws which have their presence in the mind of

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN 59

God, and their force in His will. How can things -without in-
telligence or will be in any reasonable sense the subjects of law ?
Law is a moral rule existing in some mind. Material things are
passive in the hands of God, as they are passive in the hands of
man. It is their nature to be passive, and to move as they are
moved. All motion has its origin in the will of some spiritual
being ; no other explanation of its existence is possible. God is
the prime mover of all things. The law of that movement is
in God ; the order and measure of that movement is in the
unconscious creature. The correct mode of speaking, where
material things are in question, is to speak of the order rather
than of the laws of nature, because the laws of nature are in the
wisdom of God, whilst the orderings of nature are the signets of
His will and wisdom impressed on His creation.

When we look no higher than nature for the laws that give
order, regularity, measure, and mutual dependence to its ele-
ments, we ascribe to that insensible nature what belongs to God,
and so forget that in His works we behold the signs of His
power and wisdom. Nothing can be more unphilosophical than
the constant use of language in which material effects are put for
their living cause, or in which material order and sequence are
confounded with law. When we ascribe laws to material nature ;
when we say that nature does this, or nature does that, we transfer
the exalted honour of law, the attribute of intelligence, from God
to unconscious matter ; this way of speaking generates a like way
of thinking, and of looking to the creature for what belongs to
the Creator.

There is a law of nature, but that law is implanted in human
reason, and regulates the conduct of man. " Nature acts in order,"
observes St. Gregory of Nyssa, " but the force of that order depends
upon that first command of God, which, once given, goes on
through all that is procreated to the end."* If under its natural
conditions the order of nature is uniform, that is ordained for its
conservation, and also for the benefit of man, that from the ordinary
course of nature he may know on what he may rely. But as the
force that moves nature is the act of God's will, directing all things
to their appointed ends ; as nature is made for man, not man
for nature ; as the ends of nature are subservient to the moral and
the supernatural end of man ; and as the whole ordering of nature
* S. Greg. Nyssa, in Verb. Faciamus horn. Orat. i.

6o THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

depends on the sovereign will of God ; it is most reasonable to ex-
pect that from time to time God should express His free power over
nature, and exhibit His condescension to man by subordinating
the natural to the supernatural order of things, whether to confirm
His revelations, or to answer the prayers of His servants. The
natural was created for the supernatural, and strange would it be
if this subordination were never brought to visible proof.

God, who made all things ultimately for Himself, made them
intermediately and in a special manner for the just who obey His
voice. For though they also serve the unjust, that is but imper-
fectly, and for a time that passes quickly. This world may be
considered as a school whose immediate object is to train the
just for eternal life. " From His gratuitous goodness," says St.
Bernard, " God made all things for Himself; He made all things
to serve His elect. This goodness is their effective cause ; but
the service of the elect is their terminal cause.'' * In disposing the
elements of creation, therefore, in a natural and uniform order,
God reserved the sovereign right of acting upon a higher law to
higher ends ; and He is not at all seasons inexorable to the
humble prayer of faithful souls, as His own revelations, the
frequent acts of history, and the common belief of mankind bear
witness.

God made the world as much for the instruction as for the use
of man during the course of his probation. And as the just man
is trained by faith for the vision of God, who would have us love
Him as He deserves before we see Him as He is, the visible
world is the veil drawn between the human spirit and the eternal
mysteries. Still it is a luminous veil, partly concealing and
partly revealing the wondrous ways of God. When with spiritual
eyes we look upon the marvellous diversities of things spread out
beneath the canopy of heaven, and with a reverential spirit explore
the mysteries hidden in the world, we everywhere see the shadows
of the Divine Attributes, and the footsteps of the Eternal Wisdom.
" For the invisible things of God are clearly seen from the things
that are made. His eternal power also and divinity." To the eyes
that are cleared by humility, the providence of God is everywhere
visible in its action, and everywhere His care is manifest. " This
visible universe," says St Basil, " is like a written book that bears
■witness to God and preaches His glory. To the intelligent
• S. Bernard, Serm. iii. De Pentecoste.

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN. 6i

creature it eloquently proclaims that August Majesty who might
otherwise be concealed from our knowledge. The heavens show
forth the glory of God; and the firmament the work of His hands."*

When a certain philosopher put the question to St. Antony :
"How can you live in this solitude without books?" the holy
hermit replied : " My books are the nature of things that God has
created. It gives me the choice of the volumes which God Him-
self has written." Those books are always open to us, but as
they demand the light of God to read them in the sense of God,
there are but few persons who read them in the ample sense of
their Divine Author.

Besides the natural ends which the inferior creation fulfils, God
calls this creation to accomplish a supernatural end, when He em-
ploys its elements with which to express His supernatural revela-
tions, and also when man is called to employ them in His divine
worship and service. In the first instance all nature becomes an
imagery and a language in the mouth of God, whereby to make
known His eternal truth, as we see in all the Scriptures, In the
second instance, the elements of nature as appointed by God, and
with the consecration of sacerdotal power, are made the expressive
veils and localizing envelopments of the Divine Sacrifice, and of
the sacraments, that bring grace to man; as in other religious
uses they give a symbolic splendour to God's worship, and are
the visible expression of innumerable benedictions. We cannot,
therefore, rise to the full significance of that dominion which God
has given to man over His creation, unless we embrace the super-
natural as well as the natural ends for which that dominion is
given.

Man was made in the image of God, then, not only that he
might be capable of union with God, but also that he might be
capable of receiving, as God's representative, a certain power and
dominion over the inferior creation. And this authority to sub-
ject the irrational creatures of God to his will and dominion con-
stitutes that secondary image of God, which is founded on the
first, in which he bears a living resemblance to the Holy Trinity.
The image of God by nature, and His likeness by grace, he is
also the vicegerent of the Sovereign Lord of nature by divine ap-
pointment. He is the image of the Eternal King in his authority
over a portion of His dominions, over that part of creation which
* S. Basil, Exameron, Horn. xi.

62 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

is made inferior to him. The knowledge of these inferior crea-
tures is in him, and not in them; their use and service is for
him ; and he is as a god to them. By the divine command the
whole world labours to serve him day and night without cessation ;
either supplying his wants and pleasures without his intervention,
or ready at his call to do his will; hence St. Basil calls man "a
creature of empire ".

Certain of the Fathers, especially those of the literal school of
Antioch, point to the intimate connection between the words of
Genesis : " Let us make man to our own image and likeness," and
the succeeding part of the sentence : " And let him have dominion
over the fishes of the sea, and the birds of the air, and the beasts,
and the whole earth". They observe that man was thus made to
the image of God as He is the Lord and Ruler of the visible
creation. It will be sufficient to quote St. Gregory of Nyssa and
St. John Chrysostom.

St. Gregory says : " As human craftsmen give such forms to
their implements as are most fitted to their purpose, so the Divine
Artificer has made of our nature a most suitable instrument to
administer a kingdom. To make man capable of this, He
adorned him with excellent gifts of mind, and with that form of
body that we see. His mind proclaims a certain high and royal
dignity in him, far exceeding what belongs to a private condition.
His soul knows no master in this world ; he does all things as he
w^ills, and governs himself as he chooses with a sovereign com-
mand. To whom can this belong but to a king ? Man is more-
over the image of the Divine Nature, whose empire all things
obey. In this image we see the princely dignity that was given
him at his creation. When human artists make the images of
princes, they carve their lineaments after nature, clothe them with
the royal purple, and when this image is completed it is called a
king. But man was by nature framed and made erect to be the
image and resemblance of the King of the universe, and he re-
ceives a dignity and title from his Divine Archetype to be the lord
of creatures. This image is not clothed with purple, nor is this
dignity set forth with diadem and sceptre, because the Divine
Exemplar whom he represents has none of these things ; but
instead of purple he has virtue for his clothing, instead of a diadem
he wears the crown of justice, and instead of a sceptre he has im-
mortal happiness." St. Gregory then observes that as artists take

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN. 63

the likeness of men with colours, God depicts His likeness in
souls with the virtues ; and that it is purity, peace, exemption from
evil, and a happy content that make men like to God. He then
concludes : "As God sees all, hears all, and searches all things ;
man is also like God in that he sees and hears many things, and
searches them with intelligence." *

St. John Chrysostom has treated the subject on four distinct
occasions, and although, contrary to the common exposition, he
regards the dominion of man as his chief resemblance to God,
this does not lessen the value of his argument. We shall give
them in abridgment, first observing that he never loses sight of
the fact that this dominion has to be especially exerted over our
own inferior and sensual nature.

Man is God's image, he says, in the empire which he holds over
the inferior creation, and he is God's likeness according to the
measure of human power, by meekness, gentleness, and the virtues;
even as Christ has said : " Be ye like to your Father who is in
Heaven ". As in this wide and spacious earth some animals are
tame and others fierce ; so in the breadth of our soul some
thoughts are irrational, flocking like silly sheep, others are wild
and fierce. They need to be ruled and to be brought under the
dominion of reason. If men can overcome lions and bring them
to gentleness, is it to be doubted that they can subdue their own
wildness ? The beast, that is fierce by nature, can be made gentle
beyond his nature : man, who is gentle by nature, can make him-
self fierce beyond his nature. Yet if you can take from the lion
what belongs to his nature, and can put in him a gentleness that
does not belong to him, you may surely recover that gentleness
which properly belongs to your own nature. There is a prodi-
gious obstacle to the taming of a lion, for he has not the light of
reason, and yet men by using their own reason can succeed in
making him subject and obedient, and can exhibit this skill of
theirs for money. But God has given reason to you, and the fear
of Hin), and all kinds of help, so that if you choose to have
dominion over your inferior nature, you may become meek, and
gentle, and equable.

The unbeliever will say that God has not given dominion to
man over the beasts, and that they have more power over him
than he has over them. This is not true, because they fly before

* S. Greg. Nyssa, Dc Humano Opificio, cc. iv. v.

64 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN

him. If when pressed by hunger they rend and tear him to
pieces, that is not because he did not receive dominion over
them, but because he has become a criminal. We now hold
those wild creatures in fear and dread, but this does not falsify
the promise of God. It was not so from the beginning ; for then
all the beasts feared and reverenced their master ; but when
through our own disobedience we lost confidence before God, our
sovereignty over these creatures became weakened. That they
were all subject to man in his innocence we learn from the
Scriptures : " The Lord God brought them before Adam to see
what he would call them : for whatsoever Adam called any living
creature, the same is its name ". He shrank not from their
presence, but he gave names to them as a master names his
servants, and that in token of his dominion over them. When
Eve was innocent, the serpent inspired her with no terror ; but
when sin entered into man this dignity and power sank into
weakness. So long as he trusted in God all creatures feared him,
but when he transferred his trust from God to himself, he not only
had to fear the excesses of the beasts, but even those of his fellow-
creatures.

These very fears prove the benignity of God to him, for if he
had been left in all his honour and power, it would not have been
so easy for him to rise from his fall. With what an unspeakable
benignity was he treated ! Adam trangressed the whole law
of God and subverted His whole commandment ; yet in His
merciful goodness God took not all his honour from him. He
cast him not down from all his sovereignty. He withdrew from
us a great measure of our power over those animals that con-
tribute but little to the service of our life, whilst he still left those
under our complete dominion that are most useful and necessary
for our service. In punishing man for his disobedience. He said :
" In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread " ; yet lest that
sweat and labour should become intolerable, our God alleviates
our toil and suffering through the multitude of His creatures that
both toil for us and suffer with us. *

If the wild animals when clothed in their strength inspire us

with fear, they also remind us of the strength and the wisdom that

we ourselves have lost by our disobedience, and of the dignity that

we have lost with the loss of innocence. But in punishment for our

• S. J. Chrysost., Horn. 9 in i Genes.; Serm. i et 2 in Genes.

THE. SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN 65

trifling with God's divine sovereignty, we are subject to still
greater humiliations, and the smallest of living creatures have the
power to annoy us with their noxious importunities ; and as the
executioners of our mortality, they breed in us the most terrible
diseases.

Yet when we look through the history of faith and sanctity, we
find many examples of the restoration of that prerogative of
dominion to man over the wildest and the most ferocious
creatures, that recall to our minds what power he had in the state
of innocence. Noah by faith commanded all the animals in the
ark. Elias was served by ravens and protected by bears. Daniel
commanded the lions in their hunger and ferocity. St. Paul held
the viper in his hand without injury. Lions and wolves were
obedient to the holy hermits of the desert. The most ferocious
animals in their most ravening moments were seen by fifty
thousands persons in the Roman amphitheatres, crouching meekly
at the feet of the Christian martyrs, and refusing to do them any
harm. Even the devouring element of fire sometimes refused its
oflSce of destruction. But cruel man, left ever to his own free
will, stepped in to inflict their martyrdom upon the saints with
tortures and the sword. " The time would fail me," says St. Paul,
" were I to speak of Gideon, Barac, Samson, Jephtha, Samuel, and
the Prophets : who by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice,
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the
violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered strength
from weakness, became valiant in battle, put to flight the armies
of foreigners : women received their dead raised to life again."

The second Adam, Christ our Lord in His humanity, who was
the full image of God with perfect innocence, commanded all
nature at His will ; yet he withheld this will from command when
His object was to be hidden or to suffer. And this power over
the inferior creation He promised to the obedience of perfect
faith, to that faith which with unwavering constancy trusts wholly
in God and nothing in self. When the disciples saw the unfruitful
fig-tree withered up at their Lord's command, and wondering
said, " How is it presently withered up ? " Jesus said to them :
" Amen, I say to you, if you shall have faith, and stagger not, not
only this of the fig-tree shall you do, but also if you shall say to
this mountain : Take up and cast thyself into the sea, it shall be
done. And all things whatsoever you ask in prayer believing, it

5

66 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

shall be done to you." Among His last words on earth He also
said : " These signs shall follow them that believe. In My name
. . . they shall take up serpents : and if they shall drink any
deadly thing, it shall not hurt them : they shall lay their hands on
the sick, and they shall recover."

The justice, therefore, that comes to us through mercy has
ordained that, on our return to perfect faith and obedience, some
portion of our lost dominion shall return to us, sufficient, at least,
for our edification and instruction, and for a visible proof that
God is with His servants. When, however, the wildness of nature
and the adverse elements of the world continue their hostility
against the holy servants of God, they are still the servants of the
Cross of Christ, and the ministers to that patience by which the
Kingdom of Heaven is won. But all the creatures that serve our
will, or administer to our wants, or to the work of our probation,
have their force from Him without whose providence they can do
nothing. But as God works without ceasing in them, for our use and
benefit, why should we refuse to work with them for His service,
and to His glory ?

God has not only devoted the inferior creation to our service,
but also the superior creation. For, not to speak of the countless
services which, under the direction of God's providence, men
render to each other, both with intention and without intention,
from His Heavenly Hosts our Divine Father sends His angels to
us, to help, guide, and protect us; so that we are served from
Heaven as well as from the earth. Considering, therefore, what
innumerable servants God puts at our disposal, both conscious
and unconscious, we may conclude what great service we owe to
Him, whose chief object in all these helps is to draw us gratefully
to Him ; that to Him may be given the honour and the glory that
is due from all His creatures.

That we may take a deeper and wider view of the divine plan
of this earthly creation, let us consider more carefully what is the
position of man in the midst of it. Composed in such a manner
of soul and body, that of the body the soul is the form, life, and
animating principle, whilst the body, as the instrument of the
soul, holds commerce with the whole exterior and visible creation,
this intellectual spirit and mortal flesh exist together in a wonderful
and inexplicable communion of life and personality. The soul
lives in herself, yet dependent on God ; lives with the light of God's

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN. 67

truth in her mind, with the greater light of God in her faith, and
with a spiritual sense that feels after divine things. She lives also
in the body, giving life and animation to its senses and activities,
which are in contact with the whole visible creation. The soul
thinks through the mind, feels through the senses, and acts from
the will. But whilst the truths of the invisible world are imparted
to the mind, and terminate in the superior soul that looks to
truth, the messages from this visible world come through the
senses, and terminate in the imagination, that inferior side of the
soul that is in commerce with the body.

But as the soul herself is one and simple, the imagination, which
receives the images of things from the external world is intimately
united with the intelligence in which dwells the light of truth.
Thus, whilst the light of truth in the intelligence tests the truthful-
ness of those images that are present in the imagination, the ima-
gination itself has an office to perform towards the purely spiritual
truths that are given to the mind ; for the wealth of imagery in the
imagination obtained from the visible world serves to illustrate
those pure truths with the earthly shadows of them that abound in
this material world. Thus, whilst the soul is one and simple in
herself, on her superior side she holds to spiritual truth, and gains
the sense of spiritual things ; whilst on the inferior side she holds
to the body, and receives the impress of those earthly things in
their images, which divide her attention, and which either enrich
her when she uses them justly and wisely, or trouble her when she
uses them unjustly and unwisely. She is therefore spiritual when
she subjects her senses to her spiritual will, and carnal when she
subjects her spiritual to her sensual life.

Like understands like. When the soul, made in God's image,
is subject to the light of faith^ and in obeying the grace of charity
receives the likeness of God, man becomes an ouranos, a little
heaven, according to his measure and quality reflecting the heavens
that are above. As in the composition of his body he has the
elements of this visible world, the inferior man is a likeness of this
world, receives the images of all visible things, and is thus a cosmos,
a. little world reflecting the great world around him. Thus Heaven
and earth meet in the soul of the just and faithful man, that in his
superior soul he may serve and worship God, and through his in-
ferior soul the elements of this world may be brought into sub-
jection to God through him.

68 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN

This is the primary reason of that secondary image of God in
man which consists in his delegated dominion over the inferior
creation. The man of faith, who is just to the divinely established
order of things, is the living link between earth and Heaven, the
spiritual bond of communion between the creature and the Creator.
He subjects the world to himself, and himself to God. As God's
representative he administers the things of this world, as they are
committed to his keeping, and according to the will of his Lord.
God has made him both king and priest, to rule them reasonably,
and to offer them devoutly, to the praise and glory of their Creator
and Lord. As they are devoid of reason, his reason supplies for
them by his faith, and his devotion ; in him as in a living temple
God's image is set up. His likeness is exhibited, and His authority
represented, that through him the inferior creatures may do homage
to God, and render obedient service.

Taking this just view of man's position, the Fathers of the Church
rival each other in finding terms to express the dignity of man in
his offices to the world. They call him " the abridgment of the
world " and " the word of the world ". St. Gregory Nazianzen calls
him "the observer of the visible world" and "the pontiff of
visible things ". Asterius designates him as " the interpreter of the
Creator ". St. Gregory of Nyssa calls him " the consecrator of the
universe ". Lactantius says : " He is in the world as a priest in a
holy temple, where all things are made for him, as he is made for
God ; and where he contemplates the divine works that he may
refer them to God ".* These are not the exaggerated expressions
of poets or enthusiastical humanitarians ; they are the grave and
well-pondered conclusions of theologians, who have weighed the
sense of divine revelations, who exhibit the offices of men in the
dignity which God has assigned to them, and who put them forth
to enforce on man the sense of his responsibilities.

The Prophets are full of this view of man's position in the
creation as its king and priest, and the inspired Psalmody, that
divine song both of the Hebrew Temple and of the Christian
Church, is deeply imbued with that spirit of devotion by which
a tongue of praise and a voice of thanksgiving is given to man,
with which to speak the language of gratitude to God for the
whole creation. Take, for example, the 148th Psalm, or the
Canticle of the three children in the fiery furnace, both of which
* See Klee's Manual of Dogmas, pt. ii. c. iii.

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN. 69

are used in the morning Lauds of the Church. There the tongue
of man gives a voice both to the animate and inanimate creatures
of God, that through him all mute and unconscious creatures,
called upon each by name, may praise the Lord of Heaven
and earth, and bless Him, and superexalt Him above all for
ever. Whosoever shall enter into the spirit of this devotion and
carry it out, as the saints have done, into their daily commerce
with God's creatures, will comprehend the office and dignity with
which God has invested man, of being the mind, the heart, and
the voice of the dumb creatures of this earth to their Creator and
Lord in Heaven.

If man would only rise up in mind and soul to the higher
position which God has assigned to him in this earthly creation ;
if he would but understand the high honour and great prerogative
which God has conferred on him, as His representative to the
creatures that are made subject to his dominion; if he would
enter into the design of God in making him the immediate end of
those creatures ; if he would only take it to heart that God has
made them to do him service, that he may be able to serve God
better, and to bring all God's works to do Him their service ; if he
would only use his intelligence to understand and feel that God
has placed him, a spirit endowed with mind and law, in an earthly
body, that through him all the earth and the heavens around the
earth might do homage to God ; if he would but fulfil this solemn
office which God has assigned to him, ruling all things that God
has made subject to him in the name of God, and by the law of
God ; accounting for all with God, and offering all to God ; then
would he be, what the saints with their keen intuition have always
been, the faithful and disinterested stewards of God over the
inferior creation, and the assiduous ministers of that creation unto
God. But " when man was in honour, he did not understand ; he
was compared with foolish beasts, and became like to them ",

He who rules not himself can rule nothing rightly. Remem-
ber, then, that the earth begins for us in our own body, and that
the beginning of our dominion over the earth is the subjection
of the body to the soul. The senses are the instruments of the
soul in her communications with the inferior creation, and the
body is the minister of her will, but how can we govern wisely
through a rebellious minister and with indocile instruments ? The
first principle of dominion, therefore, is the subjection to the soul

70 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

of that quickened earth which forms our own body. This sacred
duty is founded in the nature of things as well as in the command
of God. It is essential to the internal order and to the intel-
lectual as well as the moral strength of man. It is imposed upon
us by the eternal law of justice. It is absolutely indispensable
to our own wellbeing. Unless our body, with its senses, appetites,
and passions, is made subject to the law of our mind, what have
we in contact with the external world that is not disordered,
enfeebled, and let loose from responsibility ? The spiritual soul,
whose proper endowments are light, law, and love, suffers an in-
vasion of dark, earthly, and lawless things, that break down her
unity, put out her light, and defile her love. What is left to the
soul after that, which is not weak and unsuited to her nature and
aspirations ?

The inferior nature takes God's place in the soul ; and, in one
way or another, earth usurps the dominion of spirit, and death
of life. The man becomes "carnal, sold unto sin". Yet the
divine gifts of God are not for the earthly man, nor can they be ;
the carnal man cannot receive them ; as they are in their nature
spiritual, and their end is God, they can only be received by the
spiritual man. When a soul deserts her place, and comes down
into the body to be inebriated and saturated with earth and car-
nality, that soul deserts her spiritual office, and is a traitor to
her spiritual nature. How can such an one rule the inferior
creation when that lower creation is ruling her ? Instead of being
the image of God, the Lord and Master of all dominion, the soul
becomes the image of things viler than her nature, and created
for her service. It follows, therefore, as a matter of course, that
when man fell from God, and lost his spiritual strength, and the
dominion of his own body, he of necessity lost the first great
power that he had over the exterior creation. But in the pro-
portion in which he recovers dominion over himself, he recovers
dominion over the world around him, for the secret of that
dominion lies in his own subjection to God.

The first great crime after the fall sprang from the pride engen-
dered by dissent from the true worship of God. Whilst the evil
yet brooded in the heart of the criminal, God proclaimed to him
the law of self-dominion. Of the two sons of Adam, Abel offered
a sacrifice pleasing to God. It was divinely accepted, because it
was an obedient worship. For God alone can prescribe how He

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN. 71

will be worshipped, and it is not for man to choose. Abel
offered a bleeding victim in faith and in figure of the promised
Redeemer. Cain made his own choice of an offering, presenting the
fruits of the earth ; but when Cain saw that his brother's sacrifice
was accepted, whilst his own offering was rejected, his pride was
fired, and his wrath enkindled, and he meditated the destruction
of his brother. Then God said to Cain : " Why art thou angry ?
And why is thy countenance fallen ? If thou do well, shalt thou
not receive ? But if ill, shall not sin forthwith be present at the
door ? But the lust thereof shall be under thee, and thou shalt
have dominion over it."

It is impossible for us to realise how much the body has been
enfeebled, and its obedient flexibility to the will diminished,
through the loss of immortality. From the effects of original and
even of actual sin, there is also a great weakening of its vital
energy; the soul has less power over it; the functions of the
senses are lowered in strength, the active offices of the earthly
frame are less energetic, the sure and ready command of the will
over the body is checked and resisted both by its dulness and
its adverse inclinations. Above all, the body has become dis-
ordered and indocile through the lurid flame of concupiscence,
that lusts against the spirit : and what is most humiliating, the
feeding of the body is the feeding of that concupiscence; the
very resting of the body overmuch is the quickening of that con-
cupiscence. To this again we must add those inherited dis-
orders and enfeeblements contracted from unwise and unre-
strained habits that are transmitted from father to son to the
third and fourth generation, and all those undefinable evils that
flesh is heir to. As, therefore, our mortal bodies are not regene-
rated in- baptism like the soul, but must wait for its regeneration
in the resurrection, the exercise of dominion over the body, its
senses, appetites, passions, and resistances, has become a work
of great labour, watchfulness, and virtue, the power of which is
only to be gained through the grace of God and obedience to
the law of self-denial.

The external senses are far from being the full account of the
sensual man. Let me, therefore, invite your special attention to
what follows. We have internal as well as external senses, and
to these internal senses those that are external are subservient.
Then there is the imagination, that beautifying, that terrifying,

72 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

that exaggerating faculty, especially exaggerating when not duly
governed, in which the objects transmitted in their images from
the corporal senses touch upon the soul and the intellectual light
of the mind. It is in the imagination that the objects of sense,
concupiscence, and passion meet and conspire together, and by
their united influence often gain the mastery over us, when not
kept in just and due control.

It is chiefly the tide of our internal sensations, however little
noticed, that gives us the consciousness of our animal life. This
tide of internal sensations is intimately connected with the fluids
and their circulations, giving us pleasure in their healthy flow,
and trouble or distress in their languor, obstruction, or derange-
ment. The coursing of the blood through the arteries and veins ;
the flashing of electric force through the centres and countless
branches of the nervous system ; the pulsations of the heart with
their measured music; the working of the machinery of 'respi-
ration with its dependence on atmospheric conditions ; the action
of the glands in their functions of secretion; the complicated
laboratory of digestion ; the removal of wasted tissues ; the
flame of animal life with its ever-varying temperatures — all these
concur to keep alive in us the sense of our animal life, in its har-
monies or discords, according to our state of health or derange-
ments, of calmness or excitement, of subjection to the soul's
dominion, or of rebellion against the soul's authority. This is
but a brief and rough account of the elements of that internal
sensation which are fed by the external senses ; and to this we
must add the active operations and exertions of the body, as it
is the subject of the will, or as it is the instrument of our earthly
desires and appetites. We do not even perform the spiritual
operation of thinking in our present state, without the co-opera-
tive action of the brain, which depends for its healthy working
upon the whole condition of the body.

We see, then, what a vast, what a varied, what a multiplied
sense and movement exert their action within the body upon the
soul, as she pervades and animates the body. When that com-
plicated action is healthy, harmonious, and subordinate to the
powers of the soul, then all is order and peace; but when that
action is inflamed by concupiscence, excited by passion, dis-
ordered by unlawful appetite, or has lost the balance of tem-
perance, the soul that gives herself to these ignominious move-

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN. 73

ments deserts her supremacy, surrenders her control, and falls in
trouble and disorder under the dominion of the body. The soul
becomes sensualised ; her power of seeing truth is no longer the
same, and she becomes averse and alien from the spiritual life,
especially when she is not in the habit of denying or mortifying
the body, or of abstracting herself from its restless solicitations.

But the things of sense obtain their power over the soul
through their subtle union in the ill-regulated imagination, where,
as we have said, they gain a prodigious exaggeration of their
value, through the contact of their presence in the imagination
with the intellectual light in the mind. By an abusive subjection
of our mental and spiritual light to the images of these earthly
things, they obtain a semblance of good and of greatness that
does not belong to them, but only to the spiritual and eternal
things which that intellectual light illuminates ; and thus the poor
soul, in losing her proper elevation and dominion over the body,
loses her government over both sense and imagination, and falls
under the vile things beneath her which God made her to com-
mand. " The lust thereof shall be under thee, and thou shalt
have dominion over it."

From this great force of the human imagination ; from the
misapplication of the light of intelligence to exaggerate the
object of imagination ; and from the vast range of objects pre-
sented by the external world to human appetite and concu-
piscence, man is the unhappy subject of so many temptations and
passions. And where there is no habitual conflict of the soul
with the body ; where there is no rule of discipline to control its
importunities ; where the appetites and tempers of the body are
allowed their sway, there is such a subtlety in winding to their
objects, such an exaggeration of their value, such a mask of
delusive motive raised in the imagination, such a curiosity for
new experiences, such a fancy and hope of pleasure in them, such
a pride of anticipated possession to be got out of them, such a
vanity in the expected display of them, such a sensitive con-
sciousness in self-love of the coming enjoyment from them,
however quickly it may fade upon possession, that the over-
mastered soul finds her spiritual strength dissolved in the
carnal concupiscences of the eyes, the flesh, and the pride of life.

With his deep insight into the relations of soul and body, and
of what originates in each of them, St. Paul has declared a number

74 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

of vices, that seem at first sight to originate in the soul, to be
manifest works of the flesh. Among these he enumerates " enmities,
contentions, emulations, wraths, quarrels, sects, envies ". He even
ascribes heresies and false philosophies to the same carnal origin.
"Beware," he says, "lest any man cheat you by philosophy and
vain deceit ; according to the traditions of men, according to the
elements of this world, and not according to Christ." Again he
says : "Let no man seduce you willingly in humility and religion of
angels, walking in things which he hath not seen ". These passages
refer to the errors of Simon Magus and the earliest Gnostics, who
imported the philosophic imaginations of the East into Christianity.
In false humility and real self-will, they asserted that man was too
low a creature to be created by God, and that he was consequently
made by inferior gods, eons or angels, and that he was not redeemed
by the Son of God, but by an angel in human appearance. But
when the Apostle explains how a heretic of this kind corrupts
the faith with false philosophy, he tells us that he is " in vain
puifed up by the sense of the flesh ".

It is obvious that the immediate cause of the vices enumerated
by St. Paul, as manifest vices of the flesh, is pride. But this pride
is generated from that sensual self-love which oppresses the soul
through the heat and swelling of the imagination, which has its
source in the untamed spirit of the flesh. From this springs a
false and fanatical enthusiasm, that takes a hot pride in self-opinion,
and resists and opposes accepted truth as well as the authority on
which it rests. For it is the nature of pride to withstand authority
and to set up its own opinion against accepted faith. No one
who has watched the rise of a heresy, or of a false philosophy
opposed to religious authority, can fail to observe that it is accom-
panied with an imaginative and an animal enthusiasm, fertile in
glowing words and sentences, angiy against opposition, and the
very opposite to that peace in believing which faith and true
religion inspire, yet it always takes the shape of negation and
protest. But this fervid ebullition of animal enthusiasm fails not
to make the new opinions contagious among sensual minds ; for
the clouds that spring up from the earthly senses eclipse the light
of faith, and generate that pride which contracts the mind, and
narrows the perception of the large spectacle of truth. Pride of
intellect, mistaken for inspiration, is the immediate cause of error,
but sensitive self-love, engendered by the spirit of the flesh, is the

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN. 75

instigator of that pride. These victims of error are "in vain
puffed up by the sense of the flesh ''.

Could we have stronger proof of the importance of keeping the
body in subjection to the soul ? The subtle emotions of the
inward senses, fed into exaltation by the outward senses, when not
mortified and subdued, inflate the soul through the imagination,
and breed delusion and error in the mind, which the carnal heart
accepts. These errors are not objective, then, but subjective, in
their origin, springing not from the truth but from the man, as
their negative character reveals. But when once formulated and
accepted by numbers, on the authority of their originators, they
obtain a certain objective appearance of the weight of authority,
however devoid of solidity. Here let me observe, for the remark
is of extreme importance, that the skilful physician of souls ought
not only to understand the action of the soul within herself, but
also the action and reaction of soul on body and body on soul,
otherwise in mistaking the origin of internal troubles and delusions
he will be apt to mistake their remedies.

Profound, therefore, is the significance and great the purpose of
that conservative law which commands us to subdue the body and
bring it under servitude. The man is chiefly in the soul, and
pre-eminently in the image and likeness of God. To tame and
rule the body is to assert the sovereignty of the soul, and to exalt
the image of God. In this we see the incalculable value of the
self-preserving laws of temperance, of abstinence, and of mortifica-
tion, of all that is summed up in the divine words ; " If any man
will follow me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and
follow me". The spiritual combat of the superior against the
inferior man is the law of self-restoration that follows the law of
our redemption. " The lust thereof shall be under thee, and thou
shalt have dominion over it," dominion not only over the gross and
palpable lusts, but also over those subtle and secret lustings and
inflations that prompt to pride and lead to error. This discipline
of the body gives a concentrated force and vital energy to the soul,
one great result of which is to change an insolent and dangerous
enemy into an obedient and useful servant. But this cannot be done
. without long efforts conducted by rule and method; it cannot be per-
fected without that abstention from many things which the coun-
sels of God prescribe as well as His commandments ; it cannot be
done effectually without sharp and vigorous appliances ; nor without

76 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

habitual abstraction of soul from many things of a sensual nature that
besiege the imagination. Still less can the conquest of the sensual
man be won without habitual dependence on God for help. He
who has never tried to win this victory can have but a poor notion
of what there is within him to tame and to subdue, before he can
obtain that freedom of spirit which makes us free in ourselves and
free in God. But whoever has won this freedom will see all things
in a new light, and will understand them in a new sense.

Philosophy may dream of obtaining such a discipline in the
abstraction of the mind from the senses. For how many ages
has philosophy indulged in this dream ? But abstraction of mind
is not life. Without the charity that unites the soul with God,
mere abstraction has nothing solid on which to rest. After all
the soul is a spiritual substance and stands in need of a substan-
tial good. But the mere philosophic abstraction of the mind from
the senses is seldom more than a self-suspension for a time in the
pride of intellect, after which there comes a terrible rebound and
revulsion to the sensual man. A Plato may soar into lofty specu-
lations, and may carry them far ; but was there ever such a licen-
tious system of morals as that which he drew up for his ideal
republic? The natural man, however sublime in genius, is still
the natural man, too weak in himself to effect his own liberation.
Detached from faith and from God, he may entertain the most
seductive speculations on what befits humanity, but we have too
often seen what comes of human freedom, of human dignity, and
of human safety, when the attempt is made to reduce these specu-
lations to practice. It is only by obedience to faith and to God's
will that man is able to regain the lost supremacy of soul over body.

St. Paul has put the subject of this conflict before us in these
searching terms: "I am delighted," he says, "with the law of
God, according to the inward man ; but I see another law in my
members, fighting against the law of my mind, and captivating me
in the law of sin, that is, in my members. . . . For they that
are according to the flesh, mind the things that are of the flesh ;
but they that are according to the spirit, mind the things that
are of the spirit. For the wisdom of the flesh is death, but the
wisdom of the spirit is life and peace. Because the wisdom of
the flesh is an enemy to God, for it is not subject to the law of
God, neither can it be. And they who are in the flesh cannot
please God. . . . Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN 77

flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to
the flesh you shall die ; but if by the spirit you mortify the deeds
of the flesh you shall live. For whosoever are led by the spirit
of God, they are the sons of God."

It is an inexorable condition of human nature that no one can
work out his internal freedom without the help of God. It is
the liberating grace of God that takes him out of bondage to
himself, and gives freedom to his mind in the light and to his heart
in the love of God.

But whilst God has given us this secondary image of Himself in
the dominion over the body and the inferior creation. He has not
given us this kind of dominion over those who are equally the
image of God with ourselves. Wherever that image exists, it
claims our respect, reverence, and fraternal service ; but the image
of God in one man is not to be the servile subject of another.
This is the error of unregenerated man, or a very great abuse
among regenerated men. The government of Christian men is
more a kindly service than an exercise of dominion. And our
Lord, who has rectified all things, has said : " You know that they
who seem to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them ; and their
princes have power over them. But it is not so among you ; but
whosoever will be greater, shall be your minister, and whosoever
will be first among you, shall be the servant of all." " In the
just man's house/' says St. Augustine, " they who govern are the
servants of those whom they seem to command. For God would
not have the rational man, made in His image, to hold dominion
over others than the rational creatures — not man over man, but
man over the beasts of the field." *

The subject would be incomplete were we to conclude without
pointing out how the grace of Redemption tends to restore the
earth to God through the regenerated, in whom the former dominion
over the earth revives. This has been already shown in the power
given to the martyrs and saints over wild and destructive animals.
It might be equally shown in the miraculous powers promised and
given to men of great faith over the order of nature. Everywhere
great monuments exist, or have existed, of the priesthood which
men have exercised on the part of the inferior creation towards
God, as well as on the part of their own souls. The land of
the Patriarchs received the divine blessing, and its first-fruits were
* S. August., De Civitate Dei, Lib. XIX., c. xv.

78 THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

offered to God, or to man in his needs as the image of God. The
choicest of the flocks and herds were immolated to God in the
sacrifice of faith, and in the hope and expectation of human re-
demption. The whole Mosaic dispensation rested on this prin-
ciple, that the land which God gave them was under His own
sovereign dominion, and that their judges and kings were but
the lieutenants of God, to order the land and govern the people
according to His divine law. One tribe of twelve was consecrated
to God's service : and whilst the land was placed under the
divine benediction, one-tenth of its produce was devoted to God's
service. \Vhatever was most beautiful or precious in the material
creation was raised to greater beauty and expressiveness by the
feeling and skill of the best artists, and was consecrated to the
honour and worship of God. The princes and people in their
tribes and families were constantly realising in their life and wor-
ship, that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof".
Their prophets kept ever before them, that on their obedience to
the law depended their dominion over the land and their enjoy-
ment of its fruits.

But in this faithful restoration of the silent creation to its
Divine Creator, what did faith in the expected redemption accom-
plish, when compared with what faith in our redemption received
has accomplished? Wherever that faith has appeared in its
Catholic fulness, whether in rude or civilised nations, one of its
great instincts has been to devote all things best in the creation to
God, whether to His immediate worship, or to His service in the
exercise of charity to the helpless and the ignorant. Great souls
made great by great faith and charity have been the great Chris-
tian providences of the world in restoring something of that
equality of goods, which has been made far more unequal by the
selfish ambitions, cupidities, and other sins of men, than by the
natural inequalities of skill and labour ; whilst the faith of
the multitude has followed in its degree the faith and works of
the Saints.

Christ Himself ordained that the water which descends on the
earth, the wheat that grows in the fields, the sun-nourished vine,
and the oil expressed from the fertile olive, should become the
expressive veils of spiritual sacraments. And all things most
beautiful, precious, touching, or sublime in this visible world,
enter into the language of faith for the illustration of eternal

THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN. 79

things. Christ Himself made all things that are most homely
and familiar to man in the creation the parables of his path, and
conduct on the way to Heaven. The noblest inventions of the
human mind and heart are industriously combined with the best
materials the earth can afford to honour God in His temples and
Church. Wherever a few faithful men are gathered, the Church
soars above all human habitations, and proclaims the dominion
of God and the supremacy of faith. In a country of faith, every
point in the landscape that meets the eye is consecrated by a
Church where God is honoured, or by the saving Cross, the symbol
of the soul's dominion over the sensual part of man.

It would be long to tell how the promise of Christ has been
fulfilled even on this earth, that " blessed are the meek, for they
shall possess the land ". But we may recall the long ages when
monasteries of meek men, the practical philosophers of
Christianity, devoted to the law of perfection, and convents of
tender women, made strong by a like consecration and discipline,
raised their great structures in every town and city ; on the
mountain side, in the green valley, and by the murmuring stream.
These were the strongholds of God's law and counsels, and of
the works of mercy spiritual and corporal. These were the
mansions of peace, where prayer went up to God for all man-
kind, and the ignorant found light, the sorrowing comfort, the
needy relief, and the houseless shelter; and all was done and
given for the love of God. Hospitals opened their doors to the
aged, the maimed, and the sick, providing all things both for body
and soul. It would be long to tell how much of this world's
goods was devoted by faith, and even in these unbelieving times
is still devoted by faith, to charity.

The redemption of Christ has therefore brought a certain de-
liverance even to the inferior creatures, and an exaltation of
them towards their final end. Man repaired in the image of God,
and reformed to His likeness, has recovered not a little of that
secondary dominion both over himself and over the inferior
creation, especially by the law of self-denial. The more of
spiritual life he recovers, the higher his dominion rises over sen-
sible things, the more he spiritualises even those material and
earthly things, and makes them the servants of his faith and
charity. He thus becomes the true representative of God to
the inferior creation, and the mind and voice of the inferior creation

8o THE SECONDARY IMAGE OF GOD IN MAN.

to God. By the gift of faith he sees God more clearly in His
works, and by the gift of charity he learns how best to use
the works of God to their noblest ends. From the bosom of
creation his sanctity can draw secrets that are hidden from the
ungodly and the proud. A Saint Bernard will learn more of God
among the rocks, woods, and solitudes of nature than from all
his books. A Saint Francis will see God's love and tenderness in
every living creature, however insignificant to less faithful eyes,
and will converse with them as though they were his brethren.
Saints have risen to God in rapture from looking into the serene
heavens, or from comtemplating the beauty of a flower. To read
the Psalms with a Christian heart is to feel how the inspired
king made a harp out of the whole creation, on which to
celebrate the power and the majesty, the goodness and the mercy,
the tenderness and condescension of our Divine Creator and
Provider. The Christian poets and saints have followed the
example of the royal Psalmist, and, as the priests of nature, have
given a tongue to all the mute creation, that through the heart
of man they might render glory to their Sovereign Lord.

LECTURE IV.

CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.
•' There is no other god but Thou, who hast care of all." — Wisdom xii. 13.

GOD is the one self-subsisting Being, the reason of whose
being is Himself. He is the one all -perfect Being, than
whom nothing more perfect can be thought of. His Being and
Goodness are one and the same, without beginning, limitation, or
end of being. He has expressed His own absolute Being by the
incommunicable name Jehova — I am who am. He has expressed
His perfect unity by the term / a7n, and there is no other. The
word being in its absolute sense belongs to God alone : the word
existence properly belongs to the creation. God is, the creation
exists from Him.

To define is to mark out the limitations of what is defined. It
is obvious, therefore, that God is undefinable. To attempt to
irieasure God by the light of human reason is to assume that He
is not greater than the measure of human reason ; but this is
equivalent to denying Him. St. Athanasius observes with pro-
found truth : " God is the definer of all definitions ; He defineth
all things, but cannot Himself be defined. He cannot be defined
because His essence comes under no terms by which He can be
expressed."*

Yet it does not follow because we know not God in Himself
that we do not know Him in His manifestations of Himself. What
do we know of any human being but what he makes known to us ?
We cannot see his spirit, or take the measure of his soul. We are
not ignorant of God, of His attributes, or of His ways. God is
present to our existence, which could not be without His presence.

* S. Athanasius, L. Via Duds, c. ii.
6

82 CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE.

He is present to the light of our reason that leads us up to Him :
He is present to our conscience that proclaims to us His moral
law : He is present to our life that derives its force from Him.
God is present in His truth, is present in His law, is present in
His providence and care of all things. He is present in an
unspeakable manner in the splendour of His supernatural truth,
mercy, and goodness, to our faith and love. For although the
essential Being of God is to us incomprehensible, and His divine
life inaccessible, yet he sends forth His light and His truth, and
they lead and guide us to know more of God than of ourselves, or
of any creature whatsoever. For what know we of any of His
creatures but their surface qualities ? What know we of ourselves,
except what God has taught us? The inward nature and sub-
stance of all things are hidden from our sight. But in the light of
God we see light, and in that light, which is its own evidence, we
know that God is, and that whatever He is beyond our compre-
hension, to our most certain knowledge He is the Infinite Spirit
and Eternal Life, and is Almighty, All-wise, and All-good. We
also know that God is the Creator, Lord, and Father of all things,
and that He beholds all things, governs all things, and provides
for all.

We know that God is the Truth, in whom, from whom, and
through whom all things are true that are true. We know that
God is the Sovereign Life, in whom, from whom, and through
whom all things live that do live. We know that God is the
Intelligible Light, in whom, from whom, and through whom all
spiritual creatures shine with the light of intelligence. We know
that God is the Supreme Good and Sovereign Beauty, in whom,
from whom, and through whom all things have good and beauty
that are good and beautiful. We know that God is the Infinite
Happiness, in whom, from whom, and through whom all are made
happy who are happy. We also know that God is Perfect Love,
in whom, from whom, and through whom all love God who do
love God, and find their blessedness in loving God. We know-
that for an intelligent creature to turn from God is to fall, and
that to return to God is to rise again ; we also know that to abide
in God is to have a firm and stable life. We know that to aban-
don God is to die, and that to come back to God is to receive
life anew ; that to think in God is to think securely ; and that to
dwell in God is to dwell safely. We know that no one loses God

CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE. 83

who has not been first deceived ; that no one seeks God who has
not been divinely admonished to do so ; and that no one finds
God truly who has not repented of his sin. We know, in short,
that he who denies God must perish within himself ; but that he
who sees God must first enter into the eternal possession of God,
whose faith awakens us, whose hope gives us the desire of Him,
and whose charity unites us with Him.*

How miserable, then, is the lot of those who muffle themselves
in the unhappy delusion that they cannot know God, who is open
to their knowledge as well as to that of every rational creature. The
knowledge of God is the only sure foundation of every other kind
of knowledge. What prevents their knowing God but the pride
that closes their heart to Him, and darkens their understanding ?
The light that makes God known is near the sight, even when far
from the vision of the understanding; for that light is in the
summit of every mind, and in the depth of every conscience. But
there are men who in their pride of fancied superiority look always
downward, and look always away from the divine superiority ; or
if they glance upwards now and then, the sensual veil of creation
is upon their sight, and the superior light of their mind is as far
from their understanding as any star is from the earth. They see
it as a point of light, but know nothing of what it contains.

Society is so great a perfection of life, that the pagans, who
did not understand the nature of God, invented a society of gods
after their own imagination. But the one and only God hath
perfect society in Himself. He has revealed His social life to us,
and we know the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the most wonderful,
the most reasonable of all mysteries. The Three Persons in God
are not as human persons, each of whom has a separate being ;
but they are the three divine terms or perfections of one infinite
and eternal life. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost
are one God ; the life, truth, and charity of God are infinitely inter-
communicated through the Divine Persons in the one substance
of His nature. The three fundamental powers that unite in the
substance of our soul is the created reflection of the Holy
Trinity, so that the revelation of the Holy Trinity became as a
revelation of the formation of our own soul, and the knowledge
of our own soul bears testimony to the Trinity, as a shadow bears
testimony to substance.

* S. August., Encheiridion, c. i.

84 CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE.

The chief attributes of God are His power, wisdom, goodness,
and justice. As His Being is the plenitude of life and blessed-
ness, He is full with the glory of His substance, the splendour of
His attributes, and the society of His personalities. But the
perfection of God's life is expressed by His goodness, and it is
the nature of good to be communicative of good. Generosity is
the noblest and most active quality of goodness ; we cannot
understand goodness without generosity. It enters into the
definition of living goodness, that it is an imparter of good. We
cannot sufficiently dwell on this great principle, until we realise
to our mind and heart that it belongs to goodness to commu-
nicate good, and to the greatest goodness to communicate the
greatest good. The infinite and eternal communication of the
divine goodness is complete and perfect in the inter-communion
of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity. There remains, then,
but the sphere of limited existence to which God can still com-
municate of His goodness. For after the infinite there is nothing
but the finite ; after the eternal there is nothing possible but what
is measured by time \ after the unchangeable there is nothing
possible but the changeable. Not only has God the disposition
in His divine goodness to communicate of His good, but also to
exercise His attributes generally by their external manifestation
in the sphere of limited things ; not to His essential glory, which
is always the same, but to His accidental glory, and, so to speak.
His external glory.

Of His chief attributes, the Almighty power of God is mani-
fested in the creation of a universe external to His nature ; His
infinite wisdom in the ordering of that universe ; His divine
goodness in communicating good to His creatures, according to
their capacity ; and His perfect justice in ruling all things to the
final end to which He has ordained them ; or to which, where
perverse wills desert His good, they are ordained by another
order of justice.

Every good and intelligent agent works for a good end. As
the best and most perfect agent, God must work for the best and
most perfect end. But as God Himself is the best and most
perfect end, it follows that He must make all things for Himself.
This the Scriptures tell us that He does. It also follows that
what is made nearest to God in resemblance must be made more
immediately for God, as more capable of receiving greater good

CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 85

from Him ; and, consequently, that the intelligent creatures made
to His image, and capable of His likeness, are made for God in a
more excelling way. To them, therefore. He manifests His truth,
and in that truth His power, wisdom, goodness, and justice.
Those intelligent creatures are made that God may communicate
to them of His truth, His love, and His hfe. God is therefore
both the final end and the final good of His creatures, but more
especially of His rational creatures. Whatsoever they have in
the present, whatsoever they may receive in the future, they
receive from God.

Let us, then, keep these three fundamental truths in our con-
stant view. First, the end that God proposes in creating is to
manifest His attributes, and to communicate of His goodness.
Secondly, the final end of the creation is God Himself. Thirdly,
every creature is made to receive good according to its nature,
measure, capacity, and disposition.

With these fundamental principles in view, we may now con-
sider certain other great principles or laws of the Eternal Wisdom,
as they are either manifested in the work of creation, or in the
order of Divine Providence.

The first great principle to be observed is this — that although
the works of creation are planned eternally in the mind of God,
and have their eternal types in the eternal Word of God, they are
executed in time, and are perfected with succession of time. To
ask why the creation was not begun at an earlier time is to forget
that creation and time begin together, and that with everything
created, its own time begins. Time is external to God, and is
transient, as we know, and is the measure of succession and
change that belong to creatures made from nothing.

The second great principle to be observed is the endless
diversity of things, and of the forms of things that make up the
created universe, each having its specific place and object in the
general plan. To use the pregnant words of St. Thomas :
" Owing to the distance of each individual creature from God, it
was impossible that the divine goodness should be represented,
except through a great diversity of things ; so that what is wanting
in one might be supplied by another. Yet the whole universe of
creatures does not represent the divine goodness by any equality
with that goodness, but only so far as the perfection of creatures
is possible. The divine goodness is one and simple, and is the

86 CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.

root of all the goodness that is to be found in created things.
But as individual creatures can but faintly represent the goodness
of God, and each only in particular ways, it was needful that His
goodness should be represented in many different things, which, by
their unity of relation one with another, should reflect, in a certain
way, the unity and simplicity of the divine goodness. That mul-
titude and distinction of things was designed in the mind of God,
and established in the creation, that the divine goodness might
be in many ways represented in the multitude of created things,
and that each in that endless gradation of creatures might partake
of goodness according to its nature and capacity. Thus, from
the whole order of things, so many and so different from each other?
and from the mutual relations established between them, a great
beauty appears which praises the wisdom of God." *

Limitation is everywhere visible, which is a certain proof that
all these things have been created from nothing. Yet there is an
ascending series of creatures from less to greater, the one subordi-
nate to the other, each greater in proportion to the good that it
receives. But the grandeur of the creation arises from the wisdom
with which this vast diversity of things, each little in itself, is com-
bined in one harmonious universe through countless adaptations
of one thing to the other ; element to element, one work of creation
to another ; one thing counter to another ; whereby all things
naturally contribute to each other, and provide each for the other,
and balance each other. What is wanting in each particular work
is provided from all the rest. In what does any creature resemble
God more than in communicating of its good to other creatures,
as God communicates of His good to all ?

God is the first mover of all things. He impresses movement on
irrational things for their preservation and for their perfection,
and to fulfil their end. He plants the power of freewill and move-
ment in His intelligent creatures, that by their own virtue they
may strive for the divine likeness. All the movements and the
powers of action given by God to His creatures are for the sake of
the divine goodness ; not because they can increase that goodness,
but that they may each according to their nature gain some parti-
cipation of that goodness, and may reflect something of that
goodness. But the climax of this creation is the human soul, in
which all the different species of creation find their unity. For
• S. Thom., Compcnd, Theolog., c. cii.

CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE. 87

whereas each species of creature beneath man has but its own
form, the Hght of his mind is so wonderful, that it is capable of
receiving the forms of all creatures, in which they are mirrored in
a unity that in a human way resembles the perfect unity in which
all things are comtemplated in the eternal mind of God. Why is
this wonderful light given to him, but that he may learn, in that
light which God has shown to him, to see all things in God, and to
refer all things to God, in whom all things have their end. Thus
He who creates all things provides for all things, and delights in
making His providence conspicuous. From the attraction or
repulsion of particles of matter to the musical movement of the
great orbs in the heavens, all things are ordained and fitted to
each other in number, weight, and measure. From the first wailing
of the new-born infant to the lofty contemplation of the theologian
and the ardent love of the saint, God has disposed ascensions in
the heart of man, from earth towards the gates of Heaven, and
from the gates of Heaven to His eternal presence.

Why do we boast our science, and pride ourselves on our skill ?
God is the one great Metaphysician, who creates and illuminates
all spirits. God is the great Theologian, from whose light and
truth all theology descends, God is the Divine Astronomer, who
orders the heavenly bodies and sets them in their movements.
God is the Geometrician who gave to all things their number,
weight, and measure. He is the Geologist who framed the earth on
its rocky foundations ; the Botanist who planted the woods and
shrubs with their flowers and fruits; the Naturalist who constructed
the animal world ; the Physiologist who formed the body of man
with all its functions ; the Biologist who gives life to all that
lives. After men have toiled long, and often failed, they find out
some little of His science, some lower manifestations of His wisdom,
some partial examples of His operations, and then boast of them
as their own. God is the sublime Architect of the universe, and
the Artist of all the beauty that is seen in the world, drawing all
its colours from the one simple element of His created light. All
that human artists can do is to imitate His work, and to combine
their imitations after a human measure. So true are the words of
the Psalmist, that "the Lord is the God of sciences," and that it is
He " who teacheth science to man ".

The third great principle or law is this, that everything is made
for something greater than itself, and is made subordinate to that

88 CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE.

end for which it was created. To give a broad example, the
mineral creation is made to serve the vegetable creation, the
vegetable creation to serve the animal creation, and the animal
creation is subject to the human creation. But the human creation
is immediately subject to God.

The fourth great principle or law of Divine Wisdom in the crea-
tion is of a most comprehensive character, and resumes the three
already put before you. Every creature in its first creation has
more of capacity than of actual good. At first it is more potential
of good than possessed of good ; afterwards it receives the good
that is proper for the perfecting of its nature. It is made to be
receptive of more perfect forms of good. It is begun in creation,
it is perfected by the providence of God. Thus, what is begun by
power is perfected by wisdom, which guides all things onward from
their beginning to their completion. You may therefore say that
the greatest good of the creature in its beginning is the capacity
that it receives for greater good, and that every creature, but
especially man, is ordained to receive greater good in proportion
to its nature, capacity, and end.

The fifth and last principle or law that I shall put before you
presents a wonderful instruction, although but a crowning infer-
ence from the last. God creates every creature on the verge of
that nothingness from which it came into existence, and with the
least amount of perfection that is consistent with its nature, and
with the end for which it is made. Yet He gives to it a ^eat
amount of potentiality or capacity for good. He thus marks upon
that creature the nothingness from which it came, and that in a
way that can never be effaced. It bears upon it the everlasting
remembrance of its origin from nothingness. Then He delivers over
the work of His creative power to be perfected by His wisdom.
His goodness, and His providence, with course of time ; so that
all the steps in the exercise of His progressive goodness may be
made sensible to His intelligent creatures.

Let us now explain by example what we have already set forth
in principle. Although our knowledge of the angelic natures is
limited, we know that they are pure spirits. We also know that
they are one thing by nature, and altogether another by the divine
gifts of supernatural light and grace which they received upon
their creation. When first created they were neither just nor
unjust ; they had never exercised their intelligence nor their will ;

CEEA TION AND PRO VIDENCE. 89

they had neither virtue nor knowledge. But their natures were
made with a great capacity for receiving supernatural light and
grace, and for receiving divine good. Yet, although pure intelli-
gences, their created nature neither gave them the supernatural
light of divine truth, nor the grace that brings spirits to God as to
their final end. They were placed in a state of trial suited to their
nature, as man is placed in a state of trial suited to his nature.
As they did not proceed one from another like man by generation,
each angel is a separate species, and the difference of their several
qualities and excellences must therefore be incomparably greater
than is to be found in the human race, which forms but one single
species. For God never repeats Himself in His works.

Their thousands of thousands ascend from lower to higher
orders of excellence and gradations of intelligence, beauty,
dignity, and function ; and the higher enlighten the lower orders,
as men of greater intelligence enlighten those who have a less
degree of light and knowledge. Hence the power of the great
cherub Lucifer, the light bearer, to draw so many spiritual stars
after him to ruin, not by force, but by temptation. For although
the greater number, faithful to the divine help, stood firm, whole
legions turned from God, after Lucifer's example, and trusting in
themselves they found out their nothingness, and became creatures
of vanity, and proved the weakness of their nature in giving up
their dependence on God. Confiding in themselves they
lost the gifts of God, and the bright path that leads to the
vision of God. They fell into ruin, and found nothing but their
nature in disorder, their crime, and their desolation. Let any one
read the book on the Celestial Hierarchy, ascribed to St. Dionysius,
or the masterpiece of St. Thomas on the same subject, and he will
find in them a most instructive illustration of the principles that
we have put before your minds.

Of the earth and its inhabitants we have a more precise and
definite knowledge. For although the angelic hosts were the only
created witnesses of the creation of this world, that in the morning
of this creation before our morning dawned they might give due
glory to our Creator ; yet God Himself has revealed to us the
history of this creation, that man might know his origin, and the
origin of the world where he is placed, and might not ascribe to
the creature what belongs to the Creator.

The revelation of the creation and formation of this world by

90 CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.

its Divine Author is a most wonderful instruction, of which man
stood in need, and with which the goodness of God has provided
him. The real investigators of the world have confirmed the
great principles of that revealed instruction ; even though the
Scripture is still true, that " He hath made all things good in their
time, and has delivered the world to their consideration, so that
man cannot find out the work which God hath made from the
beginning to the end ".

The distinction between matter and form pervades the whole
nature of things created. The forms of things determine their
matter, make them what they are, establish their kinds and species,
adapt them to their objects and uses, and dispose them to their
ends. It necessarily follows that the forms of things are superior
to their matter. Matter is created from nothing ; it is but initial
being, although it cannot exist without some kind of form ; but
the forms of things have their primal origin in types that exist in
the eternal mind of God. These forms of things, as they are
imprinted in the creation, give us certain vestiges or shadows of
the attributes of God in the material creation, and certain resem-
blances to God in the spiritual creation. This is the reason why
those faithful souls whose minds are full of God can see His foot-
steps in every part of the creation, and why, like the Holy Scrip-
tures, they can draw so many and such various figures from the
creation with which to picture the grandeurs of God, although they
know them to be altogether inadequate, as all language is inade-
quate, to give the full expression of their inward sense of God.
The distinction, therefore, between matter and form is no invention
of the Greeks, although their acute minds gave the distinction its
precision. It exists in the nature of things, and pervades the
Mosaic account of the creation.

" In the beginning God created heaven and earth, and the earth
was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the
deep ; and the Spirit of God moved over the waters." Time
begins with creation and belongs to the creation. Time therefore
begins when God creates the angelic natures and the material
elements of the earth. The first creation of this world is of
chaotic matter, without more form than is necessary to its exist-
ence, which is mere initial being, nearest to that nothingness from
which at the will and word of God it came into existence. It is
impossible to imagine anything more remote from the perfection

CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.

91

of God than this first existence of rude, unformed, elementary
matter. Then the Spirit of God, the Divine Wisdom that perfects
all things, moved over the deep chaos of matter, to bring all
things in their time to their perfect forms and kinds.

Let us now turn to St. John's Gospel for greater light. " In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All
things were made by Him ; and without Him was made nothing
that was made." It is written that God made all things in
wisdom, and that wisdom " reacheth from end to end of all things
mightily, and disposes of all things sweetly ". The Word of God
is the wisdom of God and the power of God, through whom all
things were made. But the Word of God is the perfect form of
God. The Eternal Wisdom, as the Book of Wisdom says of Him,
is "the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of
God's majesty, and the image of His goodness ". St. Paul also
says that He is " the brightness of His glory, and the figure of His
substance, and upholding all things by the word of His power ".
When God "spoke and they were made," when He "commanded
and they were created," He spoke through the Eternal Word.

^ All things were made by Him, and without Him was made
nothing that was made." He created their substance from
nothing by His Word, and gave to them their forms. As the form
of what a man invents is in his mind before he gives that form to
the material upon which he works, whilst the same form remains
unchanged in his mind ; so are the forms of all things eternal in
the Word of Wisdom, certain copies of which He gives to the
creation. Preaching on the text, St. Augustine expresses the
great difficulty he has in making these truths intelligible to
ordinary minds, yet the difficulty does not prevent his saying that
the Divine Word is " the uncreated form, and the form of all
things that are formed. He is the unchangeable form ; the form
that has no failure, no defect, no time, no place ; the form that is
above all things, and that is present to all things ; who is the sure
foundation in which all things are, and the divine canopy under
which all things exist." *

All things were formed, therefore, through the Word of Wisdom.
God speaks His word, and they exist. But the power of God
first appears in making all things from nothing with a certain

• S. August., Serm. 122, De Verbis Evangel, jfoannis, i.

92 CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE.

initial form. Then His wisdom appears with His power, giving
to the elements of His creation their distinctions, and the several
forms that determine their natures, kinds, and species. After-
wards His goodness is exercised in a special manner; blessing His
works and making them fruitful, as well in themselves as towards
each other. With these blessings the great and continuous
work of God's providence has begun the perfecting of His
creatures, moving them by His divine influence to the help of
each other, and conducting them both to their special ends and
to their final ends. But when man is created to crown the work,
then, not only do the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of
God shine forth to his intelligent soul from God, and from the
signs of His attributes in the creation, of which man alone of
creatures has the knowledge ; but the justice of God is also made
manifest, to regulate the conduct of his responsible freewill.

Under the conduct of God's divine providence the changeable
things of this creation, changeable because of their weakness, are
perpetually undergoing changes of form, and passing through
many transubstantiations. The mineral earth, for instance, is
changed into vegetable substance, and loses its first form to gain
another that is more perfect; the vegetable is changed into animal
life; both the animal and vegetable are changed into the living
form of the human body. The earth of which God framed the
body of man loses its first rude form in the most perfect of
earthly formations.

The light of reason was implanted by God as the form of the
human soul; and the intelligent soul became the vital form of
the body with which man is invested. When the nature of man
was completed, as he is intended for union with God, from the
goodness of God through the operation of His Holy Spirit the
Perfecter, he received new forms of a divine and supernatural
order into his spirit, that are above the powers of his nature, to
dispose and prepare him for union with God, He received
the supernatural light of faith to give him a divine knowledge
of God and of himself; he received the supernatural gift of
justice to keep his composite nature in due order and subjection ;
he received the supernatural gifts of grace to enable him to confide
in God, and to love Him with a divine love above all the powers
of nature. Thus the world ends in man, and man ends in God.

Who can say what those epochs of creation were that are called

CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 93

days in the book of Genesis? Not to quote Clement of
Alexandria or Origen, who interpret these days allegorically ; not
to quote eminent theologians who have adopted the same inter-
pretation, it will be sufificient for our present purpose to quote
St. Augustine. "It would be difficult," he says, "if not im-
possible, for us to think what days of this kind may be, and much
more difficult for us to say what they may have been." *

After the creation of the elements in their iirst chaotic state,
the first epoch of formation is the creation of light, and the
separation of light from darkness. The next epoch is the dividing
of the waters in their vaporous form above from their liquid
form below ; the waters then are gathered to their places and the
dry land appears. Were the vapours that surround the earth
to descend, and the polar ices to melt away, undoubtedly the
earth would be overwhelmed with the waters anew. The ele-
ments have now been marshalled into broad masses with their
due admixtures, and all is prepared for the creation of organic
forms of existence. Then God created the vegetable world
with its wonderful variety of form, beauty, and fruitfulness. But
even the vegetable creation is without life, it neither knows its own
existence nor the existence of its Creator. Then the heavens
became clear, and the sun and moon were made to shine upon
the earth. In the fifth epoch of creation God made the animal
world to fill the seas, the air, and the earth. Yet though these
innumerable creatures, of kinds so many, of forms so various, have
their several instincts, and a certain conscious existence, they have
no knowledge of their Divine Creator.

All things are now prepared for the reception of a creature far
exalted above the already existing creations, of a creature that shall
have the knowledge of his Divine Creator. All things are pro-
vided for his nourishment, his use, his instruction, and delight.
Then comes the final epoch in which God crowns His work in the
solemn creation of man, of a being that shall partake of earth and
spirit, whose body shall be formed and nourished from the
elements of this world ; whose spirit shall receive its light, life, and
nourishment from the spiritual world ; who shall be the bond of
intelligence between earth and heaven, between the whole creation
and the Divine Creator. Yet observe this well, that though man

• S. August., Dc Civitat. Dei, Lib. I., c. vi. See Perrone, De Deo Creatore^
pars 2, c. ii.

94 CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.

is perfected in manhood at his first creation, and not as we are
completed by degrees fi-om the germ, even in Adam the law is
observed of beginning upon the verge of nothingness. First his
body is formed into its wonderful organization from the finer par-
ticles of the earth. Then his spiritual soul is created, probably
within the body, by a divine aspiration, whereby his soul was not
only created but was informed with the light of reason, through
which light he came to the knowledge of God, and of His works.
But as he is destined for God, and God is his final end, he is put
into this world as a place of trial, where his will may be formed and
perfected in the virtues that lead to God. He therefore receives
from the superabounding goodness of God those supernatural gifts
that enable him to know and love God in a divine order above
the powers of his nature, and is prepared by a divine principle
present in his soul for his final union with God.

Man is the image of God in his reason, and much more the
image of God in his faith. This the Psalmist understood when he
sang : " The light of Thy countenance is sealed upon us, O Lord ".
As man is known by his countenance, God is known by His
image in our reason ; yet He is known in a far more perfect
image when the light of faith descends to brighten and broaden
the image already in his reason. But the likeness of God is im-
printed by the grace of justice in the souL

If you ask why God did not create all men together, each
severally, as He created the angels ? this is a profound mystery.
It is the glory of God to vary His works, and to exhibit the inex-
haustible riches of His creative power. Each work is therefore
more wonderful than that which preceded. God is the first cause
of all things; but He exhibits His power and munificence in
placing the principle of causation in certain of His creatures,
whereby one thing proceeds from another ; as, for example, the
grain from the wheat, the fruit from the tree, and mature age from
childhood. As God is the principle of all things, He gave to the
first man a special resemblance to Himself, in making him the
first principle of the whole human race, a resemblance that does
not attach to his descendants with the same fulness. The first
man was also made the head and origin of the human race with an
especial view to the second man, to the God-man, who, in fore-
sight of the weakness and failure of the first man, should unite the
nature of man with the Godhead for ever in Himself, and become

CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 95

truly the head and first principle of humanity, and the crown of
the whole creation. The unity of the human race, through
generation from the first Adam, enables them to be regenerated
in the second Adam, to obtain their restoration to God and their
security in Him. The great scheme of making one man the first
principle of all men as to the body, whilst it imposed a tremendous
responsibility upon the first man, enabled the whole human race
after its terrible fall to obtain another creation from the wonderful
mercy of God from another first principle of the human race, who
shall become the principle of human salvation.

As Satan, again, had abused the great gifts of God by aiming at
becoming the principle of being, his gigantic pride and that of
his followers was brought to shame in beholding a creature made
lower than the angels, yet so formed by God as to be the principal
and immediate cause of a countless multitude of human beings, to
fill in Heaven the places they had lost. Then, in making the
human race of one blood He made them one family, and thus
provided for the existence of a special order of virtues among men
towards each other: the marital, the parental, and the filial virtues;
the fraternal, the social, and the political virtues. Even the
body of Eve is formed from the body of Adam, that the unity of
mankind from one might be complete, and that the institution of
marriage might have a more profound signification, both in its
order and its unity. Yet though Eve was framed in body from
Adam, her soul was created by God within that body, and received
from Him the illumination of reason. And although all men
are generated in body from Adam, their souls are in like manner
the creation of God, and each one severally by the implanting of
reason is made after the image of God.*

The progression of creation from rudimentary germs, and from
the verge of nothingness to their complete existence under the
conduct of God's divine providence, is perpetually exemplified
before our eyes in the growth of plants and animals ; but it is
much more conspicuous and striking in man, the distance of whose
beginning on this earth from his final perfection in God is most
amazing and incalculable. It is not so many years since you who
listen to me had your existence begun in a mere germ of matter,
you were but a speck in a region of darkness. Can anything be
imagined more remote from the perfection of God ? You were

• See Hugo de S. Victore, Sum. Sentcnt. Tract. 3, c. iii

96 CREATION AND PROVIDENCE.

a feeble substance in a great hazard, yet with a vast capacity for
greater good which as yet was in the hand of God and of His
providence. Who can tell at what moment of what hour it was
that God vitalized that germinal body with a living soul ? That
germ was nourished from your mother's blood into the child.
That soul had its powers still folded in darkness like the rose
in the bud, awaiting for another intelligence to unfold it into
light and action. " I myself," says King Solomon, " am a mortal
man, like all others, and of the race of him that was first made
of the earth, and in the womb of my mother I was fashioned to
be flesh. In the time of ten months I was compacted in blood.
. . . And being born I drew the common air, and fell upon
the earth, that is made alike, and the first voice which I uttered
Was crying, as all others do." What conclusion did Solomon
draw from his humble origin and dependent condition ? He felt
that God alone could perfect his nature. " Wherefore," he con-
tinues, " I wished ; and understanding was given me ; and I called
upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me."

We see, then, how the existence of every man begins on the
border of nothingness, weak, poor, dependent on God, and even
on his fellow- creatures ; rich in capacities and capabilities, to be
filled in the course of time with material good and with mental
good, with moral and with social good, with human and with
divine good, through the benedictions that flow at God's command
both from Heaven and from the earth, under the provision and
guidance of His ever watchful, active, and fruitful Providence.

Let us come to thai Divine Providence whose name is so sweet
and beautiful, a name so full of power and significance to every
just mind, a name so full of wisdom and goodness to every devout
soul ; yet so little comprehended by those who have not thought
closely upon the subject. Divine Providence is the action of God
over His creatures, preserving them in existence, nourishing their
being, advancing their natures with the elements prepared for them;
and giving growth above all to man from the elements prepared for
him in all the world. In His supernatural Providence God also
nourishes the souls of men with heavenly truth, and with divine
gifts, that from their first and feeble condition they may advance
to diviner forms of life, and may be brought to their glorious end
in God. " In His hand are all the ends of the earth." " He
openeth His hand, and filleth every living creature with blessing."

CREA TION A ND PRO VIDENCE. 97

St. Justin the Martyr proclaimed that he would never have
believed in Christ unless He had taught that God is the nourisher
of all things. With what a surpassing beauty did the Son of God
teach this truth, and urge upon men that they should depend by
faith on God for all of which they stand in need. In a great
parable He rebuked the folly of the man who relies on his own efforts
more than on the providence of God, and who " layeth up treasure
for himself, and is not rich towards God ". He then said to
His disciples : " The life is more than the meat, and the body more
than the raiment. Consider the ravens, for they sow not, neither
do they reap, neither have they storehouse nor barn, and God
feedeth them. How much are you more valuable than they ? . . .
Consider the lilies how they grow : they labour not, neither do
they spin. But I say to you, not even Solomon in all his glory
was clothed like one of these. Now if God clothe in this manner
the grass that is to-day in the field, and to-morrow is cast into the
oven : how much more you, O ye of little faith. And seek not
you what you shall eat, or what you shall drink ; and be not lifted
up on high. For all these things do the nations of the world
seek. But your Father knoweth that you have need of these
things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His justice,
and all these things shall be added unto you." What is the point
of this teaching ? It is this, that besides the general providence
of God over all things whatsoever, there is a special providence
over man, who as God's image is destined for greater things, and a
most especial providence over the chosen men of faith who rest
their full reliance on the providence of God. For God replies to
faith with a grander providence of greater things. In the admini-
strative order of that providence there are ascensions from less to
greater things, that look ever to the final end ; and when the man
of faith looks to those greater things instead of laying up treasure
in this world, he becomes rich towards God, and God provides
him with those lesser things. Christ spoke of the general provi-
dence of God when He said : " Are not five sparrows sold for two
farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God ? Yea, the
very hairs of your head are numbered. Fear not, therefore : you
are of more value than many sparrows." But of that most special
providence which God exercises over them who seek Him above
all things. He said : " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His
justice, and all these things shall be added to you ".

7

98 CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE.

Of this supernatural order of providence which responds with
its power to faith, and overrules the natural order, the Church of
God is the great witness. ' Take up her history, follow it from the
beginning to the end, and you will see how many men of faith,
how many apostles to the nations, how many founders of religious
orders and institutes, how many workers of her greatest works,
have abandoned all things in this world, have cast themselves on
the providence of God, and losing all things, have found all things
wherewith to accomplish their unselfish designs. For if God hath
care of all things. He has a singular care of whatever is done by
faith to the service, honour, and glory of His name.

The providence of God may be considered as it is in God, or as
it is exercised in the creation. As it is in God, St. Thomas defines
it to be " the reason by which all things are ordained by God to
their end ". As it is exercised in the creation, providence is the
will of God, ordaining, providing, and governing all things towards
their end. The whole economy of the created universe proceeds
from the reason of God, and is put in force by the will of God >
and although all the known attributes of God are concerned in
the administration of the world, yet the wisdom, goodness, and
justice of God are the most conspicuous in the work of His provi-
dence ; the wisdom that knows all things from the beginning to
the end, with all their capabilities and suitabilities ; the goodness
that provides for all according to their natures, dispositions, and
requirements; and the justice that governs all intelligent crea-
tures to their end, according to what their wills have freely chosen.

A shrewd writer has observed that there are four classes of
persons who have great need to understand the ways of God's
providence for the peace of their souls. The first are those who
live in constant fear of things befalling them unhappily when
least expected, and who suffer because they imagine they are suf-
fering what by possibility they might suffer, which leaves them
neither peace nor enjoyment in their life. The second are they
who take to the directly opposite course, feeding themselves
with fvain ^hopes and projects, which they fancy depend on
themselves for success, and never understanding that their success
must depend upon their observing and following the course of
providence. The third are the critics, who find something ever-
lastingly to censure in God's economy and government of this
world ; as if everything ought to be managed according to their

CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE. 99

short views and blinking lights. The fourth class are those who
are called strong minds, because they are stiff and unbending to
the truth ; foolish minds, that imagine all things are subject to a
fatalized necessity, and refuse to allow that they are guided by the
divine wisdom and will, because they have not wisdom to guide
themselves.*

There is a fifth class who are fond of the word chance, and
ascribe most things to chance, finding the word very useful as a
cover to their ignorance. With those who ascribe all things to
chance, the following anecdote may shorten argument. The lead-
ing French infidels of the last century were assembled in society
and indulging in their atheism, when Diderot exclaimed :
" Let us appoint a defender of God ". The Abb^ Galiani was
appointed to the office, and he said : " One day at Naples there
was a man in our company who took up six dice, and bet that he
would throw the number six. He did so, and this was within the
limits of possibility. But six times running he threw the number
six. Then every one cried out : ' The dice have been dealt
with \ On examination this was found to be the case. Now,
gentlemen philosophers, when I consider how the order of nature
perpetually returns, and how constant its movements are amidst
such infinite diversities ; when I also consider how this one
chance preserves such a world as this which we see, notwith-
standing a hundred million of chances that might derange its
order, or destroy it altogether, I am led to exclaim that the world
has been dealt with." This unexpected sally reduced the adver-
saries of God's providence to silence.

What need is there to prove the good providence of God,
the conviction of which is in the depths of every human soul, the
presence of which is everywhere manifest to those who are
attentive to its operations ? If the fictions of vanity, if the boast-
ings of pride, darken the view of God's fatherly care in certain per-
verted minds; and if others, more from idle vanity than conviction,
take up their shallow notions as a fashion, especially when the
world goes prosperously with them ; when God is too good to them
to leave them in their folly, it generally requires but a little of His
merciful surgery in the shape of trial and calamity to bring them
to themselves, and open their eyes to the visitation of His
providence.

• D'Argentan, Grandeurs de Dieu, c. xvi.

I oo CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE.

There are certain fundamental truths which are so open and
sure to all well-disposed minds, and which so envelop our
existence, that to enter into elaborate proof of them has the effect
on simple minds of confusing what is clear, and of making a
difficulty of what is both certain and obvious. Such are the
existence of God and the action of His providence. Where there is
error respecting them, it lies more in the wrong disposition of the
person than in the want of evidence. Remove the m.oral malady,
change the disposition, and the soul will recover her sight. Proof
of these large and ever-present truths, as elaborated by the
human mind, however valuable as tests of reason and science,
tend rather to contract the breadth and fulness of that evidence
which appeals to all minds and hearts alike. But to those who
are indisposed to their truth, dry arguments are of little avail. If
a man has a prospect before his eyes, and you attempt to prove
by some dry reasoning that he sees it, you only divert his attention
from the prospect. The proof is in his sight. What is rather
needed, when we speak of God's providence, is such an exposition
as will carry its own light, and will ap])eal to the light already
in the mind. This is the method of the Sacred Scriptures. After
the exposition of the creation, they are filled from first to last
with the history of God's government of the world, and especially
with His providential government of man.

But the whole action of that divine providence is not open to
our view ; there is much presented to view, and much left to faith.
The reason of that providence is in God, whom no mortal man
hath seen at any time. As the central point is equally present to
every point of every circle drawn around it, so the mind of God is
equally present to all times, and to the length and breadth of
all things in all times. He alone has disposed the present for the
future, and knows what the present will give birth to in the future.
He has ordained that the grain shall die to bring forth the harvest,
that tempests shall rise to purify the world, and that sorrows
shall prepare the future joys. We see the grain buried, we shiver
in the tempest, we are bowed down beneath our sorrow j but
we have so much knowledge of the two sides of God's providence,
that our hope instead of expiring enkindles under trial. The
sun descends, and then, brought to ourselves, we think more of
God and less of the world ; he rises in renewed splendour and
opens the world to us anew. So it is with the providence of God :

CUE A TION AND PRO VIDENCE. i o i

it alternates in trial and consolation ; trial brings us to ourselves,
consolation to the good bounty of God.

We see the lower links of the chains of divine providence, but
not those upper rings more golden that are attached to the throne
of God's government, where ''clouds and darkness are round
about Him ". The action of divine providence is present to
our view, but we see the course of that providence more com-
pletely in the past than in the present ; for it is not of a moment,
but is a continuous action, of which one part explains the other.
For many things, therefore, we have to wait the interpretation of
time — that is to say, the future providence will explain the present,
to which now in its obscurity we attach our faith. We have the
record of that divine providence, as exercised over a chosen race,
preserved in the Holy Scriptures, and extending from the creation
to almost the time of Christ. That divine record is pre-eminently
a demonstration of the providence of God. It is continued
through the history of the Gospel and the Church, as well as in the
testimonies of profane history. Everywhere throughout the his-
tory of the world we may see the movement of God, and His
government overruling the intentions of man. For man proposes,
but God disposes. And when we compare the facts of history
with the lights of prophecy, and place the declarations of God in
the far past in conjunction with their fulfilment, we have a great
witness from heaven confirmed from the earth, and a great
witness from the past confirmed by the future of that past, that
God provides for all events, whether with or against the intentions
of His creatures.

We have the broad outlines of that providential action constantly
before us in the world, with many striking examples to which we
cannot close our eyes. But the divine counsels partake the
qualities of being both communicable and unsearchable. The
general reasons of God's government reach our understanding,
whilst we are unable to assign the causes to all particular events.
For example, we cannot say in this or that particular case why the
good things of this world are given to this person, whilst evil
things are allowed to befall another. And yet we know the general
principle, that sufferings are allowed to fall upon virtuous persons
for their purification, and that the good things of the world are
often left to the wicked to furnish them with fancied security.
But who shall say that the one will always remain good, or that

I02 CREATION AND PRO VIDENCE.

the other will always remain hardened ? The future remains in
the secret knowledge of God until the time of its manifestation.

We have larger grounds generally on which to see the provi-
dence of God in our own case than in the case of other persons,
not merely because we are more interested, but because we know
more of what God has done within us, and our interior history
throws so much light upon God's external dealings with us.
Where there is question, therefore, of God's moral government
over the conduct of other men, we have often to stay our judg-
ment, as we neither know their interior history nor can we divine
their future ; but a full knowledge of God's providence over the
interior man is essential to the understanding of His providence
over the exterior man. When the disciples asked Jesus: "Master,
who hath sinned, this man, or his parents, that he should be born
blind?" Jesus answered : "Neither hath this man sinned, nor
his parents ; but that the works of God should be manifest in
him". This great affliction was therefore sent to this man from
his birth as a special providence, and with a view to his super-
natural end. The power of Christ was manifested in him, and the
gift of corporal sight brought him to the light of faith and the grace
of redemption.

The manifold providence of God is partly open to natural
reason, but the great prospect of that providence awaits our faith.
The greater circle of the heavens which embraces the smaller
circle of the earth is not so large in comparison as the sphere of
faith which embraces the sphere of reason. And as the heavens
reflect their light upon the earth, so does faith reflect its celestial
light upon our less expansive reason. But beyond the luminous
sphere of faith there is the infinite sphere of God's eternal light,
from which He sends forth His providential wisdom upon the
world and its inhabitants, in secret as well as in open ways, that
from what we see we may believe what we do not see, and may
venerate the whole providence of God with humility, and entrust
ourselves to its guidance with faith.

When we take the general result of the perceptions of mankind
at large within the limits of reason, we find it proclaiming the
providence of God with a loud, constant, and clear voice. But
when we take account of individual men devoid of faith, we can-
not fail to recognize a certain limited number of minds in unhappy
discord with the common voice of humanity. For this or that

CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE. 1 03

man's reason suffers obscurations, whether from the pressure of
sensuality, the predominance of imagination, the inflation of pride,
the love of singularity, the malicious disposition of the will, or the
false point of view in which he puts himself. From some of
these causes the reason of individual men gets beset with error,
especially on a subject so vast in its comprehensiveness, so high
in its ultimate reasons, and so complex in its manifold operations
as the providence of God. But though the natural reason of
man has a much shorter and weaker insight into the ways of
God than faith, it conducts us to the door of faith, and there
delivers us to a more sublime teacher, and more sure guide.
Faith opens up to us a sublime prospect of truth which the
unassisted eye of reason cannot reach, and gives a light, a
strength, and a security to that reason which corrects its errors,
and enables it to enter with wondering eyes into the revelation
of God. In various parts of Holy Scripture we are taught that
faith generates intelligence, and strengthens reason ; that it opens
the mind to truth with the power of a master, and plants within
us the secrets of wisdom. In short, the whole experience of
faith confirms the divine admonition, that " unless you believe,
you shall not understand ".

To faith God has revealed the creation of the world, and the
progressive order of its formation. " By faith," says St. Paul,
" we understand that the world was framed by the word of God ;
that from invisible things, things visible might be made." To
faith God has made known the great outlines of His providence
from the creation to the end of the world, when all things are
brought to their final end, and then will the course of providence
be completed in the final judgment ; then, and not till then,
will the whole order of that divine providence be revealed to
the glory of the Supreme Provider of all things.

In rapid sentences, St. Paul reminds the Hebrews how God
conducted the children of faith under the special care of His
providence during the whole length of time from Noe to Christ,
giving them good for their encouragement, both human and
divine, and sending them afflictions and trials for the good of
discipline. He then concludes : " And all these, being approved
by the testimony of faith, received not the promise, God pro-
viding some better thing for us, that they should not be perfected
without us ". They could only be perfected in the vision of God,

1 04 CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE.

from which they were withheld until their redemption and ours
was accomplished, and they with us could be united with the
new and Divine Head of the human race. Where St. Paul ends
the vision of St. John begins. In that wonderful Book of Reve-
lations, the vision of the providence of God is opened in its great
features to our faith from the beginning of the Church of Christ
to the end of the world. There we see how God overrules the
empires and nations of the world with all their power and
passion to His own divine purposes. There we see how all
things work together for the final good of God's faithful ones.
There we see how the disorders that spring up in the world
from the perverse wills of men are directed in their results by
God to a final order. There we see how the Eternal Wisdom
superintends the conflicts between truth and error, between
the Church resting on God for strength, and the world resting on
its own ambitions, and how He guides those conflicts to their
final issues.

In that divine vision, as in the history of the former people
of God, we see the spiritual world ever actively concerned in
the affairs of the human world. The angels good and bad, the
ministers of heaven and hell, take each their side and share in
the vast scene of toiling and contending mortals. The good
angels exert their holy influence in the cause of God and of
His servants ; the evil angels put forth their malignant influence
in the cause of Satan, and of the persecutors of God's kingdom
on earth ; until finally we hear the rejoicings of the blessed
spirits for the victory of God's patient ones, and we see the final
overthrow of the apostate angels, and of the human victims
who have followed their apostasy. Then comes the final separa-
tion of the good and evil ; the providence of God from the
beginning to the end of its reign is displayed to the intelligence »
of the universe ; and the exceeding goodness and wisdom of that
providence is vindicated by the voice of Eternal Justice. Then
follows the eternal joy of God's vision, and the everlasting
agony of those who have lost the everlasting good ; the eternal
joy of those who to the end have loved God, the everlasting
agony of those who to the end have revolted from the good
for which they were created. Wonderful and awful is the history
of humanity ! More wonderful and amazing is the history of
God's providence in ruling the history of humanity ! But of all

CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE. 1 05

things the most astounding is the perversity of man against the
goodness of God.

It is not, however, the object of this lecture to treat the whole
subject of divine providence, but rather to exhibit an outline
of the relations between providence and creation, whose final
object is to bring man to his perfection in God. We must,
therefore, hasten on with our purpose

God is just and faithful to His eternal plan. It is part of that
plan that the material and irrational creatures obtain their
end in the service of man ; and as they are unspiritual and
devoid of freewill, God governs them by the laws of necessity,
and provides them with all the means to accomplish the ends
for which they were created. It is the noblest part of the divine
plan that man should obtain his end in God, which gives a
nobler end through him to the inferior creatures that serve him ;
yet, however divinely helped to that end, that help must be
accepted by his will, and with the use of that priceless freedom
that nothing can necessitate. For God has made him a
cause to himself, and the cause within him must work with the
Supreme Cause in determining his course, he choosing the good
that is offered him, whilst the providence of God gives him the
means to practise good and to avoid evil.

The great orbs of the universe seem to our eyes as though
they were suspended upon nothing. God upholds and moves
them with the balance of a twofold movement, by one of which
they seek their centre, whilst by the other they seek to fly from
their centre; and by this double movement, so finely balanced
by the Eternal Wisdom, they run securely in their appointed
Courses. There is a twofold movement in every order and
department of God's providence, one of which proceeds from
the secondary causes which He has implanted in His creatures,
the other from the primal cause of all, which is God's will, over-
ruling the action of these secondary causes to their final ends.
Among these secondary causes are the movements given to the
elements of nature, the powers of assimilation and growth given
to the vegetable and the animal world, the powers of
generation, and the instincts of sense and movement given to
the animal world. These powers and movements given to the
several parts of creation, and suited to their kinds and offices,
may be considered as that first active providence which the

1 06 CREA TION AND PR O VIDE NCR.

Almighty exercises in the very act of creation. But above this
original provision of secondary causes implanted in His works
is that ever-active virtue and influence of the divine wisdom
and will, upholding, superintending, disposing, providing, and
governing all things to their final end.

But whilst the irrational creatures are governed by the laws
of necessity, the rational creatures are governed by the moral
law of God, who never interferes with the freedom of the human
will, but gives higher motives to that will in a diviner light, and
greater strength to that will in supernatural help, that the will of
man may exercise a nobler freedom. Woe, then, to the man
who transfers the necessity which he sees in the irrational
creatures to the human will. He perverts the whole reason of
his nature, and falsifies the whole character of that divine
government under which he is placed. He puts himself at a
point of view so utterly false, that, to be consistent, he must
deny the moral government of God, and reduce man to a
mere machine, acting only as he is acted upon, and left without
choice to determine his conduct.

It is true that God is the disposer of the minds of men, because
He is the Author of their light, giving them more or less of His
light according to His will and their dispositions. It is equally
true that God disposes of the issues of human conduct ; for
man proposes and God disposes. What we are responsible for,
what we are finally rewarded for, is our good will and intentions ;
but the results of our actions are in the hands of God's provi-
dence, to prosper and make them fruitful in this world or not, as
He sees best for the general designs of His providence. For
others are involved in the fruits of our works as well as ourselves,
and it is not always for our own final good that this or that
well-intentioned work should prosper. It is also true that God
changes our fortunes as He judges best for our present discipline
and final good, or as more conformable to His justice; and
that He ordains the circumstances, or what we call the accidents,
with which we are surrounded, and which have such great in-
fluence on weaker souls, although so little upon the stronger
souls that seek their strength in God. Yet the will is ever free to
work with or against the providential influences of God.

But, to come to the great point, what is the final object of
that manifold providence which moves so many influences both

CREATION AND PROVIDENCE. 107

from earth and Heaven upon the soul of man ? The great and
final object of that providence is to awaken and advance the
soul of man from things temporal to things eternal ; from
things changeable to things unchangeable. This explains the
shocks and defeats, the disappointments and the sorrows, that
man is constantly encountering in this world. They belong to
that providence of discipline that awakens man from the delu-
sions of this life, and urges him to seek the better things. What
is the light of his mind but a luminous pathway to lead up the
soul to eternal and unchangeable things ? What is the deepest
seated appetite of his soul, but the sense of an infinite good
after which he ought to aspire ? What is the Revelation of God,
but the manifestation of that eternal truth for which the man is
in search ? What is it but the making known that divine
good for which he was created? Why, then, will he prefer the
changing opinions of man to the unchangeable truth of God?
Why will he love the light and vanishing goods that contract
his being with their earthly pressure, more than the divine and
everlasting good, that enlarges his being beyond measure ? The
whole intent and purpose of God's providence is to advance
His creature man from less to greater good, and from lower
to higher virtue ; from things temporal to things eternal ; from
things changeable to things unchangeable; that he may reach
the divine end of his creation, and there find his perfection in
God.

What we stand in need of is a deliverance from our own
limitations, and from that self-seeking attraction that keeps us
bound and cramped within those natural limitations. To seek the
things above us, we need to be freed from the pressure of the
sensual body upon the soul, from the excessive attraction of the
external world upon our interests, and from the spiritual adver-
saries that war against our soul with error and temptation. But
this implies a combat and a rescue. Our nature from its origin
is weak and contracted ; and after its fall from God, has become
selfish, sensual, and sinful, contracting and enclosing us more
and more within ourselves. The contracting elements of Nature
and of sense first close in upon our soul, and these must be
broken out and brought down to their proper places before the
soul can expand in the light of truth, and rise with freedom to
superior good.

1 08 CREA TJON AND FRO VIDENCE.

A conflict, therefore, must ensue between light and darkness,
between the infinite truth and the sensualized man : between
good and evil. This contractedness of the self-seeking man,
striving foolishly and vainly to make himself the centre of good,
must be overcome before he can seek his true centre with love
in the Supreme Good. This self-centering of the man is the
work of that concupiscence of which we hear so much, but of
which many of us understand so little; it is that threefold
concupiscence of the flesh, the eyes, and the pride of life, which
destroys the whole just and reasonable order of things. For the
just and reasonable order of things requires that every free spirit
or soul should seek the greatest good through the highest light
in the mind, and from the deepest appetite in the will. But
the combat by which a man is delivered from himself, by which
his soul is set free, expanded in the truth, and advanced to the
greater good, must of necessity be a combat against himself,
against his own contracted limits, against the self-seeking vices of
concupiscence, and against the powers of evil that invade him
through his concupiscence.

The moral perfecting of man that delivers him from himself, and
so from evil, and that prepares him for God, cannot be accom-
plished without this conflict with the seductive powers of the
world, and with the spiritual adversaries of the soul. It is the
conflict with these adversaries, and with his inferior nature with
which they are allied, that brings into action and forms into
habits all the generous virtues of which he is capable. And as
the chief object of God's good providence is to bring man to
his moral perfection that he may come enriched to his final end
in the Divine Perfection, it is a great part of that providence to
provide for the formation of those vigorous virtues which perfect
the spiritual man ; permitting the approach of evil, and allowing
many evils to conspire against him ; that by a greater conflict he
may accumulate a greater wealth of virtue ; whilst a way is
always given him to escape from his temptations, and the means
are proffered him by which to triumph over them. Such is the
wisdom and the goodness of God. Such is the glory of God in
the conquest of evil.

The crowning providence of God is the Incarnation of His
Eternal Word. This stupendous plan for restoring and per-
fecting the creation, whether we consider it in its elevation above

CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE. 1 09

all His other works, or in the depths to which it descends, or in
the intimate union that it accomplishes between God and the
creature, or in its all-embracing efficacy of reconciliation and
deliverance, is the most sublime of all the mysteries in which
God has manifested His wisdom, His power, and goodness. It is
a new creation of the most marvellous kind, as well as a new
providence of the most wonderful order. It is the living key-
stone of the living arch of that saving providence which overspans
the intelligent creation ; and of which the rainbow that God
placed in the heavens was a symbol, for that He would no longer
destroy man. Ordained from the beginning in contemplation of
the weakness of human nature, and in foresight of his fall from
God, the Divine Wisdom contemplated a greater creation of
a greater man, made everlastingly secure by inseparable union
with the Person of his Eternal Word, in whom He might bring
back the lost creation to Himself; in whom He might triumph
in a more glorious conflict over the powers of evil ; in whom
He -might restore all things to the way of their final end.
The whole of God's government of this world is, therefore, regu-
lated upon the Divine Economy of the Incarnation. The whole
conflict of light against darkness, of the infinite against the finite,
of good against evil, centres in the Person of the Son of God
made man.

In all ages onwards from the fall men have sighed and sought
for, and even expected, a Divine Deliverer from evil, and a
bringer of divine good. This was by no means limited to the
prophetic line and the prophetic people, although the promise of
God shone through them to the nations. The Word of God was
already in the world, although the darkness did not comprehend
it. Through Him the world was made, and the foosteps of His
presence were everywhere. There was nothing formed in any
thing of which the type was not in His Eternal Mind. But the
soul of man is an image of Him who is the Divine Reason. For
what is the reason of man but a certain participation, however
shadowy, however reflected, however remote, however diminished,
of the light of the Eternal Word? What is the conscience of
man that makes him a law to himself, but a certain light of
justice imprinted on his soul by the Eternal Word ? What is the
deepest craving of every human soul but the deliverance from
evil and the coming of good ? It is impossible for a man not to

1 1 o CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE.

wish this deliverance from evil, this ascent to the greatest good,
however he may mistake that good. Hence men have always
sought this deliverance, even when they knew not who should
deliver them. The Word of God was nigh to them, even at their
doors, yet so secretly that they knew it not, when they condemned
their own evils, felt their own miseries, and cried to God for
deliverance.

The Word of God is the Wisdom of God, and under this name
His presence and His action in the world is thus described in
the Book of Wisdom : " Wisdom is more active than all active
things : and reacheth everywhere by reason of her purity. . , . For
she is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror
of His Majesty, and the image of His goodness, and being but
one, she can do all things : and remaining in herself the same,
she reneweth all things, and through nations conveyeth herself
into holy souls, and maketh friends of God and prophets. . . .
She reacheth therefore from end to end mightily, and disposeth all
things sweetly. . . . For it is she that teacheth the knowledge of
God, and is a chooser of His works."

Not only secretly but manifestly, the Word of God rehearsed
His own Incarnation, in open visions taking a human form, and in
spoken words, and in inspirations as of man to man, conveying the
light of His presence and His gracious help " through nations into
holy souls ". The Gentile Job proclaimed to the Gentiles that
he knew that his Redeemer liveth. The Gentile Balaam pro-
phesied His coming, despite of his own will. Plato, whom a Father
has called the Greek edition of Moses, declared that until a
Divine One came to teach us, we knew not what to ask of God.
The Sibyls prophesied of Christ, and Virgil versified their
prophecies. Where was the nation before the Incarnation that
felt not the deep conviction that they needed a deliverer who
should be both human and divine ? Their greatest errors were
but the corruption of this truth. They sought him in some wise
king whom they deified ; or in some sage in whom they fancied
that divinity inhabited ; or in the founders of their religious systems
whom they considered to have been divinely inspired ; or they
sought this deliverer in their secret initiations ; or in their very
gods, whom they first imagined, then humanized, and then looked
to as deliverers from evil. The instinct of the Incarnation was
everywhere ; and everywhere they looked, to heaven and to earth,

CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE. 1 1 1

for some god in the form of man, or for some man into whom a
god had descended, to deliver them from evil, and to bring them
light and good. For in their blindness they knew not that the
very Word of God who gave them their reason and their
conscience, was to become incarnate for their deliverance. Yet
the nations desired their deliverer, even when they knew not
whom they desired. They had a sense of the true God as above
all their gods, to whom, as TertuUian observes, they cried in the
hour of distress, forgetting their own gods. And in view of this
universal desire for a divine deliverer, many Fathers have not
hesitated to say, that even among the Gentiles the sincere wor-
shippers of God were saved through implicit belief in the
Incarnation. Hence the remarkable words of Aggeas the
prophet, that " the desired of all nations shall come ". " He
said not that he was the desirable, but the desired of all nations,"
observes Richard of St. Victor, " from which we may understand
that in every nation there were some inflamed with this desire ;
and that his coming was foreknown and expected by many
Gentiles."* St. Paul, therefore, calls Christ "the Saviour of all
men, but especially of the faithful ".

That Eternal Word that was everywhere operating in the world
entered at the appointed time into a body undefiled. "The
Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." Estranged from
God, we could not come to the light ; but the light came to us.
We could not ascend to God ; but God descended to us. Im-
mersed in carnal things, and absorbed in the love of this world,
we had neither an eye nor a taste for spiritual things; and He
came in a body and soul like ours, that by tempering His pre-
sence to our carnalized condition. He might accustom us by
degrees to His divine light, and drawing us to His spirit by
degrees, might heal us in the end. " Because of our infirmity,"
says St. Leo, "He diminished Himself; because we were in-
capable of beholding Him, He covered the splendour of His
majesty with the veil of His body, that the eyes of men might
look upon Him." t We had lost our sympathy with God in our
fears of His justice ; but the Son of God drew our love to Him
with all the tenderness of His human sympathy, fulfilling the
words of the Prophet Osee : " I will draw them with the cords of

* Ricardus de S. Victore, De Verb. Incarnat. c. viii.
t S. Leo, Serm. 25 in Nativitate Domini.

1 1 2 CREA TION AND PRO VIJDENCE.

Adam, with the bands of love ". We have received nothing with
our nature from the first father of our race but sin and calamity.
But the Son of God is made man, and becomes a better Father ot
our humanity. As the Head and inexhaustible Fountain, not of our
carnal but of our spiritual generation, we recover from Him the
justice of God, and the peace we had lost.

In our calamitous condition we had sunk down from the divine
light into our folly, had lost the justice of God, had forfeited our
salvation, and had no help in ourselves to recover our final end.
But God would not have the whole creation to fail through the failure
of the intelligent part of that creation. He would not give to evil
the triumph of success over good. He would not allow His
favourite creature, whom He had made in His image, to perish
utterly. He would not have His great design of giving Himself for
the final happiness of man to be defeated. He, therefore, gave the
Person of His own Eternal Son to a man created by the Holy
Spirit pure and undefiled from an Immaculate Virgin, and so
descended from the stock of Adam, and united our human nature
by an indissoluble bond with His Eternal Word. In Christ
Jesus " the whole fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily " ; and He
" is made of God unto us wisdom, and justice, and sanctification,
and redemption". A new fountain of light and life is opened
to us, and that fountain placed in human nature is divine. It
is divine that it may be all-powerful ; it is placed in human
nature that we may have free access to this divine fountain of life.
Contracted within the circle of human nature since our fall, and
reluctant through our moral infirmity to pass beyond the boun-
daries of our nature, the health that we had lost, the life that we
stood in need of, was brought down into our human nature, and
placed on our level, that we might first find God anew in our oWn
nature, and then ascend through His humanity to His divinity.

Our disease was pride, and for our cure God comes to us in
humility. Our disease was sensuality, and we see God suffering
in a body like our own, and giving us the law of self-denial for our
cure in His own example. Our disease was the wisdom of the
flesh, conquering the mind with its turbulent assumptions, and we
see the Eternal Wisdom crucifying His flesh with His spirit, and
proclaiming the wisdom of the flesh to be folly. Our disease was
the ambition of this world, and we see, to our confusion, in the
divine example, that power is perfected for our human nature in

CREA TION AND PRO VIDENCE. 1 1 3

infirmity. Our disease was to love the wealth of this world as our
final good, and we see the inexhaustible wealth of God dwelling
in poverty. A new and a supernatural providence has come to
us in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, a providence that is
perfect in wisdom, visible in example, and audible in precept.
With over-abounding goodness and unspeakable mercy, the
Divine Physician has brought us every medicine of which our
sick nature stood in need ; has shown us the way from disease to
health, and from death to life ; and has provided the remedies for
every disorder of our mind and heart, and is Himself the fountain
of our light and life.

We are so made that we would not change our identity of nature
with an angel or with any being however noble, for that would
be to destroy our own. What we really wish is to have our own
nature rectified, purified, enlightened, enlarged, exalted to greater
good, and beatified. "We also," says St. Paul, "who are in
this tabernacle, do groan, being burdened : because we would not
be unclothed, but clothed upon, that that which is mortal may be
swallowed up by life." This terrible dread of death, although the
way to life ; this fear of the breaking up of the mould and form of
the old Adam, before we can receive an immortal form, is the last
of the fears inspired by the anticipation of breaking away from
our present contractions and limitations, and yet they must be
broken, like the shell to let free the winged bird, before we can
reach the atmosphere of perfect freedom. For the children of
Adam must break through many limitations before they reach this
perfect freedom. What is contrition but the breaking up of sin to
receive the form of justice ? What is penance but the breaking
down of old habits to receive the new ? What is obedience but
the breaking down of pride to receive the will of God ? What is
self-denial but the breaking up of concupiscence to receive the
modest habit of sobriety ? What is conversion but the breaking
down of self-love to receive the love of God ? What is con-
templation but the breaking forth from the natural limits of our
mind to enter into the superior light and truth of God. But
Christ has given us both the example and the power of dying
to ourselves that we may live to God, until death can no more
alarm us, because we are disposed to eternal life by the life of
Christ within us.

We will now sum up this lecture in a very brief form, and chiefly

8

1 1 4 CREA TION AND PROVIDENCE.

in the words of St, Bernard. The true progress of man, from his
feeble beginning to his final end, is marked out by Divine
Providence, and the path of that progress is strewn with greater
and still greater benefits as we walk faithfully along its course.
But the whole of this progress is marked by a succession of
liberations : liberations from ignorance, liberations from earthli-
ness, and liberations from many kinds of limitation. This
progress has its concentrated expression in the moral and super-
natural advancement of the will. Before we reach our final
end we require a threefold freedom : freedom from necessity,
freedom from sin, and freedom from suffering. Freedom from
necessity is given to our will in our creation ; the grace of
Christ restores us to freedom from sin ; but freedom from
suffering is reserved until we reach our final end in God. The
first of these liberties is of nature, the second is of grace, the third
is of glorj'. For man is created with a free will that he may
become a noble creature in God ; he is reformed from injustice
to innocence that he may become a new creature in Christ ; he is
raised to glory after the new creature has been perfected in the
Spirit of God. The first of these liberties hath much honour, but
the second hath much virtue, and the third hath the accumulation
of joy.

If it be said, as certain heresies have dared to say, that the
grace of Christ compels our will, and saves against our will by
destroying our liberty, how can this be, since Christ, who is the
author of grace, has said : " If the Son shall set you free, then
shall you be truly firee " ? The predestination of God to salvation
is the preparation of those graces which make our salvation sure.
God knows whom He will save. What, then, does free will do ?
I answer briefly, says Bernard — it is saved. Take away free will,
and there is nothing to be saved. Take away grace, and there is
nothing by which we can be saved. The work of salvation cannot
be accomplished without two things — that by which it is done,
and that to which, or in which, it is done. God is the author of
salvation : free will is capable of salvation. That, therefore, which
can only be given by God, and only accepted by free will, can
neither be without the consent of the receiver nor without the
grace of the Giver. Thus free will is said to co-operate with the
grace that gives salvation, when it consents, that is, when it is
saved ; for to consent is to be saved.

CREA TION AND PR O VIDE NCR. 1 1 5

With infants a different dispensation provides for a different
condition. Their sin is without their will, because they have not
reached the age of reason, and their will is not yet free. They
have not consented to the alienation of their will from God.
They are therefore saved by the regeneration of Christ, without
their will, because as yet they have no free or responsible will.
But where the will is free it must freely co-operate with the grace
of Christ. Why has He given us a law of salvation, if we are not
free to obey His law ? Why has He commanded the virtues, and
given us grace for them, if we are not free to exercise the Christian
virtues ? Why does He command us to believe, and impose
fearful penalties on unbelief, if we are not free to believe ? Why
does He command us to love God with all our heart and strength,
if we have no heart, no strength of will with which to love God ?
He strengthens our heart and will that we may love Him. We
have an appetite, in common with the animal creation, and St.
Paul calls it " the wisdom of the flesh " ; of which he says, that "it
is not subject to the will of God, nor can it be ". Having this
appetite in common with the animals, what distinguishes us from
them but our free will ? It is a habit of the soul free to dispose of
herself. It is not compelled, it is not extorted; it is will, not
necessity, or man would cease to be man. What is compelled is
not will, it is violence ; but where there is consent there is will,
and where there is will there is liberty. The liberty of our nature
exalts us above the animal creation ; the liberty of grace exalts us
above the world and the flesh ; the liberty of glory puts death
beneath our feet. For by the victory over sin, and the triumph
over death, which is the last enemy to be destroyed, we are
transferred to the liberty of the glory of the sons of God, with
that freedom with which Christ has made us free."'

* See S, Bernard, De Gratia et Libera Arbitrio, c. 1-3.

LECTURE V.

SELF AND CONSCIENCE.
*• My conscience bearing me witness." — Romans ix. i.

OF all the mysteries of human nature this is the most strange,
that man should not only be ignorant of himself, but that
he should not care to know himself. If he neither loved himself
nor took any interest in himself, his indifference about the know-
ledge of himself would be intelligible ; but this is what is so
mysterious in human nature, that the more a man loves himself
the less he cares to know himself. Yet with respect to all
persons and things except ourself, the more we love them, the
more we delight to know and understand them, that we may
constantly strengthen our affection with fresh discoveries and new
motives. But we still everywhere meet with this singular excep-
tion, that self-love has no zeal for self-knowledge.

Why does our zeal for ourselves awaken so much of our love
and so little of our understanding ? The very question brings a
smile upon the face, and in that smile there is a silent irony that
penetrates to the malady from which this contradiction springs.
For what we are slow to see in ourselves we are quick to see in
others, and could we but see ourselves through their eyes, and
with their independent judgment, we should hasten, with the
confusion of shame, to rectify the failings which others see in us
though we do not. So different is the image we frame in our
imagination of what we are, from our real presentation as seen by
other eyes. But unhappily self-love is the most jealous, sensitive,
and vindictive of all feelings ; and our best friends and most devoted
superiors, to whose wisdom and prudence we readily intrust our
other interests, are apt to offend and lose their influence with us,

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 117

when they make the hazardous attempt to give us some know-
ledge of ourselves.

The conclusion is obvious. There must be some grave dis-
order in the conditions of a love that shrinks from knowing the
subject of that love. Something in our nature must be off its
balance, and there must be a vital error somewhere causing us to
wrap our self-love in self-ignorance. For we have the ominous
instinct and apprehension that a better knowledge of one's self
would bring pain with it, and shame to our self-love, and a demand
for its sacrifice that we are unwilling to make. The chief obstacle
to self-knowledge, therefore, is this very self-love, which stands
self-condemned in the very act of resisting knowledge. Yet all
love of one's self is not thus condemned, as we shall afterwards
see ; for there is a love of self that seeks, in all humility, the true
knowledge of one's self and of what we stand in need. We are
only speaking here of that vicious self-love which is the great
deformity of the soul.

It must, however, be admitted that even they who sincerely
seek to know themselves find it no short or easy task. As we
have no direct view of our own features, but can only see them as
reflected in a mirror, so we have no direct view of our own soul,
but can only see her as she is reflected in her operations. Our
mental eye is, in this respect, like our corporal eyes ; being the
foremost faculty of the soul it cannot see what is behind it, unless
in some reflecting medium brought before the mind. As our
features are no direct object to our eyes, our soul is no direct
object to our mind. No subject is its own object, but is made for
something greater and better, and that something better is its
object. Had we been made for ourselves we should, doubtlessly,
have been so made as to have the direct view of ourselves ; but
this is a decisive proof that we are not made for ourselves, that
we have not this direct and objective perception of ourselves.

The glass in which we see ourselves is no part of us ; it is some-
thing quite distinct from us, and there we see ourselves by
reflection. The light in which we see our soul is not only
something different from what we are, but is something greater
than what we are, in which we see ourself reflected. What is
the knowledge of one's self but the true and just perception
of our own measures and manners? But this requires a true
and just standard of measurement. How can we see what

ii8 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

we are unless we can see what we are not, and what we
ought to be ? How can we see our defects from order except in
a law of perfect order ? How can we see our deformity except in
a light of perfect beauty ? " If the soul has not got a mirror,"
says St. Bernard, "she cannot know herself: the pure and spot-
less mirror of the soul is the conscience." * In the conscience is
the light and law of God, and the whole order of moral beauty ;
and, unless the eye is vitiated with self-love or defiled with
sensuality, when we view ourselves reflected in that mirror we are
able to see ourselves and take the measure of what we are.

Whilst men are keen upon their interests, their mental pursuits
or pleasures, these various occupations sharpen their faculties,
but increase the difficulties of self-knowledge. For much of the
charm of these pursuits consists in taking the man away from
himself, and in causing him to forget himself. When he is
absorbed in business, study, or pleasure, the man is said to be
preoccupied, an expressive term which indicates that he is drawn
out of himself, and set on the things before him. How can
we reconcile this love of pursuits external to the man with a
predominant love of self.? The fact is that self-love finds
its nourishment in those very things that are outside the man,
and that take him from himself. This, however, requires expla-
nation.

If man were his own good, the knowledge and love of himself
would be the sources of his happiness. In that case solitude
would not be his trial but his delight, for the more he were alone
with himself, the more he would enjoy himself. What greater
proof can there be that man is not his own good, than his fear of
solitude ? Why has he such a dread of solitude ? Why does he
think a solitary life unnatural? Why has he such a horror of
having nothing but himself to think of and to live upon ? To the
ungodly man the most terrible of punishments is to be shut up in
a lonely cell, and to be thrown upon himself as his one and only
resource. When placed in unbroken seclusion, unless he be a
holy man who lives in converse with God and with the spirits of
the just made perfect, the only question that remains is, how long
can he go on before he breaks down, not merely in health, but in
mind and becomes an utter wreck. So true is it that man was
not made for himself.

* S. Bernard, De Interiori Domo, c. xxiii.

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 119

The man who lives with God is never alone. Nay, he is never
less alone than when alone. The things of time are of small
importance to him in comparison with the things of eternity. The
realms of eternal truth are open to his mind ; God, and His Christ,
and the populated heavens are open and accessible to his heart.
He is never without resources that are incomparably greater than
himself. But to the man who loves nothing greater than himself,
to dwell alone with himself is wearisome, and with time intolerable.
How, then, is this disgust and wearisomeness with self to be recon-
ciled with all this love of self?

The fact is that no man really loves himself alone, and as the
one immediate object of his love. He loves himself in a round-
about way, through many things that he associates with himself,
and in which he reflects himself By associations and by an
imaginative appropriation, the actual self grows into many things by
reflecting one's self into them, which creates a fictitious and imagi-
nary self that is not the real self. We may compare this complex
image of self with its grotesque exaggeration to those spectral
images which the traveller sees of himself, when, with his back to
the sun, and the mists on the mountains before him, he finds his
figure reflected before his eyes in gigantic and misshapen propor-
tions. Take away his surroundings, strip his associations from him,
and you reduce him to himself Put him into solitude, or bring
him to his deathbed, and what he is not drops from what he is,
and he finds his veritable self. He finds himself face to face with
his conscience, the witness not only of what he is, but of what he
ought to be.

When a man comes to his pure self, and when that self is felt
without anything intervening, neither the sense of God, nor the
sense of other creatures, nor even their images as distractions from
one's self, the taste of self is not pleasant. It is a voidness and
want, and has a flavour of repulsive bitterness, which led St. Paul
to say, " We have in us an answer of death, that we should not
trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth up the dead ". For
though there is a certain life in our nature, it is not the true life
for which we were made, and which we receive from God. When
we look to ourselves for good, we find but the capacity for
good ; and when we desert our true good we find ourselves
empty and void. When we look to our earthly associations
for satisfying good to justify our self-love, we find but disappoint-

I20 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

ment, because our true good is not less but greater than
ourselves.

This is terribly exemplified, and may be taken as a test trial, in
the so-called philosophical school of German pessimists. Rejecting
God from themselves and from their minds, rejecting Him as their
Creator, Provider, and final end, and looking to themselves for a
divinity in their own will, they have proclaimed their sad expe-
rience that they find their human life to be a dreary waste and
hopeless misery. They have, therefore, raised the question whether
life is worth living ? Such is the life they have made for them-
selves, and such is the life they find in themselves.

When a man can escape from its solitary nature by no other
door, he will take refuge in his imagination. There he will paint
scenes of life, society, and indulgence into which he may throw his
feelings, and exercise his self-love at will. But if the burden of
himself is too heavy for his fancy to relieve he broods on imagi-
nary evils, which still foster his self-love, and sinks into melancholy.
Melancholy may be truly called the black bile of self-love ; it is a
state in which the soul is overshadowed and depressed with the
sense of her own insufficiency, whilst unwilling to rise up to better
and more generous things. The melancholy soul sits in the pool
of her despondency, and pines beneath the gloomy shadow of her-
self which overhangs her hke a cloud. The sentiment of melan-
choly works like a spell of enchantment to sadden the soul with
imagined afflictions, from which self-love fails not to extract a
noxious nourishment, that swells the soul with the conceit of worth
overwhelmed by evil powers. But let the hour of real affliction
come, and it will break the enchantment of self-love, and destroy
the pride of imaginary distress. And if, in this hour of visitation,
the soul turns to God, and the severity of conscience brings her to
the severity of repentance, when she enters into the mercy of God
she will no longer fear to be alone with God.

The deeply-seated evils that cause God to be forgotten demand
sharp and cutting remedies. When God sends them, in His mercy,
they not unfrequently come with a shock that lays open the whole
interior condition of the soul, like a flash of light through the dark-
ness of the night, giving a great self-knowledge, with complete
conversion. The divine light pierces the depth of the soul, the
conscience inflicts its pangs, the treacherous foundation on which
self-love has rested the soul is exposed to view ; and it becomes

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 121

equally visible that God alone is the solid firmament on which
she can build securely. There are other souls, on the contrary,
and these are numerous, who have no great depth of malignity
nor yet of goodness, who take things easily because they are never
greatly troubled. With a half-and-half allegiance to God, and a
half devotion to themselves, somewhat spiritual and a good deal
sensual, they keep their inconstant souls in a state of vacillation,
move to and fro like a pendulum much on the same line of
motion, but never get down into that profundity of humility which
ensures the real knowledge of ourselves.

What is that self of which so much is said and so little known ?
Self is the subjective man in that nature with which he was born
into this world. Self is man's nature as taken apart from all
that God does for him, and from all that God provides for him.
Self is our own individual personality as denuded of all that
is not ourself, as stripped of all that we receive, and of all with
which we are clothed, whether in soul or body, through the good
provision of God, be it light, truth, grace, nurture, or any good
whatsoever to mind, soul, or body, that God has given us.
St. Paul brings us to ourself when he asks the question :
" What hast thou that thou hast not received ? And if thou hast
received, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received ? "
Again, he says to the man of faith : " You were darkness, but
now light in the Lord ". Your nature is dark ; God has given you
light. Your sin made your nature darker ; God has given you
greater light to expel the darkness of sin.

" Have you evil in you ? " asks St. Augustine. " That is from
yourself. Have you good in you ? That is from God. You have
turned from yourself to God, and by this conversion you have
become light. How were you made light ? God is light. You
were not light, but sinful. The old man was darkness. If you
are now light, another has given you light. Do not imagine that
you are light, for that is the true light which enlighteneth every
man that cometh into this world. When you were turned from
God by your evil will, you were darkness ; you are now light, not
light in yourself, but light in the Lord. What have you that you
have not received ?"* What is true of your light is equally true of
every good that you have received, whether for body or soul.
But as to yourself, the prophet Isaias will tell you what you
* S. August. Enarrat. in Psalm, xxv.

122 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

are : " Behold, you are from nothing, and your work from that
which hath no being ". But that we may know from whom we
receive the better things, the prophet introduces the Almighty,
saying : " I am the Lord thy God, who take thee by the hand, and
say to thee : Fear not, I have helped thee ".

God makes our nature, but our own will makes our character.
As the principle of human activity our will is the creation of
God, but the use of its power is our own. The conduct of the
will is the conduct of the man ; the conduct of the man forms the
habits of the man, and the habits of the man constitute his
character. The whole moral man is reducible, therefore, to the
conduct of his will. But the will of man is one thing, and the
objects on which he employs his will another. In vain would
be his will unless God gave objects to his will to bring its power
into exercise. As his own nature is the creation of God, so
whatever his will is employed upon is either God, or the creation
of God, or the gift of God. What has he, then, that he has not
received ? Or in what can he glory as though he had not received ?
What attracts his will, that he loves; what repels his will, that
he disrelishes or hates. " My love," says St. Augustine, " is the
weight that inclines me, and to what my love inclines me to that
I am carried." What we chiefly love to that we mainly cleave,
and we take from it the colour, sentiment, and character which
saturate our life. If our dominant love is to this world, our love
carries us into the world. If our dominant love is to God, our
love carries us to God. If our dominant love is to ourself, we
are not carried to self, because there we are, and there our
will is ; but the will draws all things to self, and through the
magical delusion of imagination, out of all we draw to ourself we
construct a fictitious self, and on that fiction we expend our love.
For this self-love builds in delusion, the delusion entertains the
will, and the will is thus kept from seeking solid good, whilst
building delusion in its place. For what we will, that we love,
and what we love, that we are, as we become changed into the
qualities of what we love.

This, then, is the just measure of ourself. Our own substance
is as nothing, because being is good, and good is being, but our
good is not in ourself but in another, since we are but the recipi-
ents of good. We are only good in proportion as our will cleaves
to a greater good, which is not ourself. God is our substantial

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 123

good, and therefore the Psalmist says to God : " My substance is
as nothing before Thee ". In loving one's self rather than God,
we turn from light to darkness ; but, as being is relative to light,
in diminishing our light we diminish ourselves. Listen to this
profound truth as explained by St. Augustine : " To be is to
belong to light ; not to be is to belong to darkness. Whoever,
therefore, deserts his Creator inclines to that nothingness out of
which he was created, and by this very sin he is darkness. Yet
he is not so darkened as utterly to perish, but he descends to
things that are low and vile." *

What is content but the fulness of our capacity for containing ?
If man were his own object, and an object sufficient for himself,
he ought to be always full, always content. Why, then, is he
always in want of greater light ? Why is he in such need of so
many things? Why has he such great desires and such little
content? What signify those sighs and yearnings for something
better than he is ? Why those incessant wanderings abroad of his
mind and heart in search of what he cannot find at home ? The
natural man has not that far insight into all he wants that is open
to the man of faith, but even the natural man, when he examines
himself, sees clearly that he is insufficient for his own content.
Let us hear this natural man. Plato says, that "all sin comes
from too much self-love ".f Cicero observes, that " Nature loves
nothing solitary, but always clings to something else for support".^
Seneca perceives that " though man is born for virtue, he is not
born with virtue " ; § and he exclaims : " Oh, how contemptible
a thing is man, except when he rises above human things ".||
Sentences like these sound like distant echoes from the inspired
Psalmist, contemplating man in the light of God. "Behold thou
hast made my days measurable (or, as in the Hebrew text, but a
handsbreadth), and my substance is as nothing before Thee.
And, indeed, all things are vanity ; every man living. Surely man
passeth as an image ; yea, and he is disquieted in vain. He
storeth up, and he knoweth not for whom he shall gather these
things. And now, what is my hope ? Is it not the Lord ? And
my substance is with Thee."

If the pride that breaks out of self-love into conscious egotism

* S. August. Enarrat. in Psalm, vii. f Plato, De Legibus, L. 5, c. 4.

I Cicero, De Amicitia. § Seneca, Epist. 90.

II Id. Prcefat. in L. i. Quest.

124 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

could make a man sufficient for himself, it would necessarily
follow that the higher a man ascends in pitch of pride the more
he will be sufficient for himself. Let us put this to a simple test
intelligible to all men. Who knows not that the proudest are the
shallowest of men? Who, in his sober senses, fails to see that
the operation of self-sufficiency is an assumption that reveals the
hollow condition of the soul ? If it were not the most painful it
would be the most ridiculous of human exhibitions. Offensive
when displayed in arrogance to men, it is revolting when dis-
played in impiety towards God. But as the operation of
man's self-sufficiency — however smooth the words, however
philosophical the terms, however ostensible the argument — is
reducible to nothing but boasting, from beginning to end it is
simply ridiculous.

The more pride a man reveals, the more evident to all be-
holders becomes the absence of mental and moral solidity.
Great pride, in the judgment of sober men, is nearly allied to
mental derangement ; and it is no uncommon thing for it to
break out into open madness, as our lunatic asylums too often
bear witness. For excessive pride is a kind of intoxication that
terribly strains the powers of Nature, as it works with violence
against the just order of Nature, and therefore against its tran-
quillity. And when men, in the humour of false philosophy,
abstract their minds from God, and attempt to construct the
subjective man into a self-sufficing being, they little understand
the desolating effects of their reveries upon the minds of weak
men, already too apt to assert their self-sufficiency.

Let us now apply our test. Pride is a swelling of the soul that
springs from the perverse appetite of making ourselves greater
than in truth we are. To take the strictly scientific definition of
St. Thomas : " Pride is that whereby a man desires to surpass the
measure of his condition in contradiction to right reason ".* This
elation of pride springs from self-love, and is the chief outcome of
self-love. But if man were made for himself, he must be sufficient
for himself, which is contradicted by all the facts of his nature.
Again, if he were made for himself, he must have made himself,
which is absurd. If he were sufficient for himself he must be as
a god to himself, an absurdity which more than one modern
school of infidels has maintained with the very lunacy of pride.

• S. Thomas, Sum. 2. 2. q. 162. a. i.

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 125

For if these absurdities could be true and reconcilable, there would
be no inordinate self-love, and, consequently, no pride. Yet all
men admit that pride, the offspring of inordinate self-love, is the
root of human evil ; and it is recognised as the offensive pre-
sumption of a self-sufficiency that we do not possess, and that is
repugnant to reason, justice, and common sense. Man is there-
fore altogether insufficient for himself, and the contrary assumption
is absurd and ridiculous. So far from being independent, as self-
sufficiency would make him, the number and greatness of his
wants proclaim him the most dependent of all beings.

If human nature finds itself in a state of disorder from its birth ;
if man comes into the world in need of reparation ; if his faculties
are wounded and weak ; if evil is present with him, and he suffers
and sighs for a good that is far from him, it is because he is of
the race that was incorporated bodily in Adam when he fell off
from God, who is the good of his soul, and fell upon himself, thus
substituting the love of self as his dominant disposition for the
love of that good for which his soul was made. But this is to lose
the whole order of good, and consequently to lose the justice
which acts upon that order.

The alienation from God, which constitutes the original culpa-
bility of man, has these two calamitous effects : the one is the
forfeiture of that supernatural principle of grace which enabled
him to advance towards his Supreme Good; the other is the
contraction of the man, through this inversion of his affections
upon himself, which is the cause of all his miseries. But God
cannot give up His rights in a creature made for Himself and
bearing His image. Nor can that creature be happy or content
without God. In his body, derived from Adam, there reigns a
propensity, a disorder, a concupiscence, a fuel of sin that
oppresses, obscures, and defiles the soul from the moment that,
fresh from the creative hand of God, she enters into the body,
there to dwell with it in the closest union of life and action.
Such is the fallen condition of man, from which he can only be
delivered through the unspeakable mercy of God, in the regenera-
tion of Christ by the sacrament of baptism.

But after the soul is regenerated the body still remains unre-
generated until its death and resurrection. Left in its mortality,
the fuel of concupiscence is continually supplied from the external
world through the corporeal appetites and senses ; these, again,

126 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

feed the internal senses and stimulate' the subtle and ever-active
imagination. All this fuel of concupiscence fosters and promotes
the carnal consciousness of self, and stimulates to the inordinate
love of self against the laws of God, written with light in the
conscience. " For the corruptible body is a load upon the soul,
and the earthly habitation presseth down the mind that museth
upon many things." The unregenerated body has, therefore, to
be incessantly combated by the regenerated soul, lest she lose
her freedom, and turn more disastrously than ever from her com-
munion with God. For, as St. Paul says : " There dwelleth not
in me, that is in my flesh, that which is good. For the wisdom of
the flesh is death : but the wisdom of the spirit is life and peace.
Because the wisdom of the flesh is an enemy to God ; for it is not
subject to the law of God, neither can it be. And they who are
in the flesh cannot please God." That is, they who live in the
desires of the body cannot please God, because these desires
bring the soul under bondage to the inferior nature, and her love
is turned from God to self

From this comes the necessity of the law of self-denial. This
law was introduced with the promise of redemption ; was em-
phatically re-asserted in the word and example of our Divine
Redeemer Himself, and the Cross is its everlasting symbol.
Tertullian has justly observed that the law of self-denial is the
special law of Christians. It is directly opposed to self love, and
to whatever feeds and stimulates self-love. The highest reason of
the law of self-denial is summed up by the Venerable Bede in this
short sentence : " We can only approach to the God who is above
us by quitting ourselves, and this is called the denial of ourselves ".
That man effectually denies himself who subjects his body to his
soul, and his soul to God.

Our inordinate love of the things of this present life has its
chief foundation in this love of ourselves. We draw them to us ;
we reflect ourselves in them ; and out of them we build that con-
structive and fictitious self of which we have spoken. Upon this
fictitious self we expend our affections ; they absorb the energies
of the soul in vain, and withhold us from ascending to the better
things. Self-love must therefore be dissolved into the love of God,
a commutation of its force which can only be accomplished by
the addition of divine grace, and a change in its direction. To
quote the luminous words of St. Augustine : " The soul is carried

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 127

to whatever she is carried by the weight of her love ; and for this
reason we are commanded to carry over the weight of cupidity to
the weight of charity, until cupidity is consumed and charity is
perfected".* This transfer of love from self to God is the
whole sum of Christian perfection, the sublime height of which,
familiar to the Saints, is thus described by the same great Doctor
and Saint : " God is to be loved until, if it were possible, we
might forget ourselves ".t

This self-denial is the expression of that self-hatred which is the
adversary of self-love. Not that we are to hate ourselves with an
evil will, but to sacrifice our self-love from the truest charity to our-
selves, that we may gain the love of God, and, in the love of God,
our union with the supreme good of our life. This hatred, there-
fore, is but the earnest love of God resisting self-love as its enemy.
On this subject Tertullian says, with his usual precision and
profundity, that among Christians the love of self is not so great a
thing as the hatred of self. And this profound truth has obtained
its ample exposition in St. Augustine's famous book On the
City of God, where he describes the two loves that have built two
cities, which, in this world, are mingled together, but in the next
are parted from each other. One of these cities is ruled by God,
the other by Satan, The City of God begins from the love of
God, and is constructed with the love of God, and the energy of
that divine love increases, even to the hatred of self. But the City
of Satan begins from self-love and grows with the love of self, and
that self-love increases even to the hatred of God. These two
loves embrace the whole history of the human race, and extend
to the eternal years ; the one is holy, the other is unclean ; the
one is social, the other is private. Our Lord has therefore said :
" He who loveth his soul shall lose it, and he who hateth his soul
in this world shall keep it in eternal life ".

Is there no love of one's self, then, which is good and lawful ?
Undoubtedly there is. How else could we have been taught to
love our neighbour as we love ourself ? How else could we have
the virtue of hope ? How, again, the love of our salvation and
perfection ? What is love but the desire of uniting our being
with a more excellent Being, that may give us the good and per-
fection that we want ? Our good, as we have so often repeated,

• S. August. Epi$t. 89 ad Hilarium.
t Id. Scrm. 54, De Verbis Domini,

128 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

is neither in ourself or of ourself : our good is in God and of God.
We therefore look to our real interests, and exercise a holy love of
ourselves, when we look to God above all things, and love Him
with our whole heart and mind ; and when we love our neighbour
for His sake as we love ourselves, that is, when we wish him the
same good that we wish ourselves. When this greatest interest of
our love is made firm and secure to us, it becomes the vital prin-
ciple by which all subordinate interests and affections are regulated.

This is not a self-love, with self for its direct object, but it is a
love of ourself in our objective good, in that supreme good that
makes us good according to the essential nature and order of
good. The love of charity is expansive, it extends in all direc-
tions; while that pestilent self-love contracts and oppresses the
soul, withholds her from charity, and eats into her spiritual nature
like rust or rot, penetrating into her very substance with a vehe-
mence and passion that works unlimited evils. There is no evil of
which it is not capable ; the least thing gives occasion to it ; and
without a renunciation of that self-love which refuses the love of
God, and a profound humility to protect this renunciation, it is
very difficult, if not impossible, to protect ourselves against it.

As the true love of ourselves is included in the love of God, we
have no special command to love ourselves. Charity is the con-
cord of all things. It is a virtue so divine, so ample, so all-em-
bracing, that it extends our love of God to all that God loves.
Charity is the principle that animates and regulates the love of
one's self and of one's neighbour within the love of God; whosoever
loves himself otherwise more truly hates than loves himself, because
he loves the worse instead of the better, which is beyond all reason
and equity. It is beyond all reason, because reason demands that we
should love that which is best in itself and best for us ; and it is
beyond all equity, because equity is the equalization of our will
with the just order and due proportion of things, whilst inequity,
or iniquity, is the failure of our will from the due order and just
proportion of things. Hence the Scripture says : " He who loveth
iniquity hateth his own soul ". These words of St. Augustine are
also to the point : " In what inexplicable way it comes about I do
not know, but whoever loves himself without loving God does
not love himself; and whoever loves himself does not love
himself ".* If this sounds like a paradox to those who love them-

* S. August. Tract, cxxiii. in yoannem.

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 129

selves without loving God, it is a clear and luminous truth to those
who love themselves within the love of God.

Face to face with ourself is our conscience. We call it ours
because it is implanted in our faculties, but conscience is the
organ of God, and the expression of His will to us. Implanted
in our mind and heart, and put into the closest relations with
our spiritual sense, conscience is at once a light, a sense, and a
witness to our will. We see the law of right and wrong in its
light, we feel its force, we remember what it records as though it
were written in a book within us. Compared with every other
kind of knowledge, conscience has this distinctive character, that
it is the witness of God and the soul. This mysterious element
in the reason of man reflects the intimate relations which God
holds with his soul, and it imprints upon his heart the imperish-
able obligations that he owes to the Divine Author of all things.
Conscience is a universal fact in human nature, and a kind of
natural revelation, giving to all men and to each, in a more or
less vivid way, a notion of the law and of the end of human life.
It is to be found, with more or less obscuration, in the savage as
well as in the philosopher. Plato proclaims that this unwritten
law and notion of good which the philosophers, poets, and
legislators contemplate, is inseparable from God and from a
divine providence.* Cicero and Seneca use the word conscience
as synonymous with religion, but owing to the unregenerated
state of the pagans and their heathen blindness, their conscience
was much more sensitive to the dread of the divine anger than
to the sense of the divine goodness.

Faith, and the charity which follows faith, give perfection to
the conscience, and reveal to our understanding what conscience
is with great clearness. If it be, as it is, a truth and a law
planted by God in our mind, it also works as a prompt and
practical sense in the heart, warning us, at every instant, both
what to do and what to avoid. Hence the Scriptures, both Old
and New, make the heart the seat of the conscience. To return
to the heart, in Scripture phrase, is to return to the conscience,
to listen to the voice of God within us. The conscience not
only expresses the law of God, but it necessarily implies an
inward sense of God's all-seeing presence. But when we call
the heart the seat of the conscience, we do not speak of the
* Plato, De Legibus, lib. i., c. 10,
9

I30 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

material heart, but of the spiritual sense which is inseparable
from the will, and of which the material heart is the organ.
The heart is equally placed for the will, the spiritual sense, and
the conscience, thus intimating that the conscience, as the law
of the will, is placed in the closest relations with the will, St.
Paul says of the natural conscience : " The Gentiles, who have
not the law, do, by nature, the things that are of the law ; these
having not the law, are a law to themselves : who show the
work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience accusing
or else defending them ". Here, as elsewhere, the Apostle ex-
hibits self and conscience not only as distinct each from the
other, but as opposed each to the other.

As the Christian conscience is formed of the light of faith as
well as of the light of reason ; as it is raised to higher, more
ample, and diviner views of God's eternal law, and receives a
keener sense of God's presence; and as it is invigorated with
the force of grace and charity, making the soul much more
sensible both to good and evil, the Christian conscience rises to
an incredibly higher power than the natural conscience. For not
only are God and the law of God seen in the truly Christian
conscience with greater clearness, but the presence of God and the
force of His law are felt in the heart with greater quickness and
intensity. The conscience then becomes as "a breath of the Spirit
of God," in whom "we live, and move, and have our being ". As the
light of the Word of God, it reveals to us both God and our-
selves. As a breath of the Spirit of God, moving as the life of
charity within us, as by a sacred touch upon our spirit, it gives us
the vital sense of God's presence with us. For all the grace of
God within us goes to perfect the conscience; and as a spark
of divine light and a breath of divine love, the conscience is the
living bond between the Christian soul and God.

St. John Chrysostom calls the conscience " the authoritative
teacher implanted in human nature ".* Not that the instruction
which develops our conscience is divinely implanted, but, as
St. Bonaventure observes, the light of its first principles is
implanted.f St. Augustine enters more deeply into the office of
the conscience. He calls it "a certain noble judicial power
that God has inserted in us, so that in this book of light, which

* S. J. Chrysost., Horn. Hi. in Genes., c. xxvi.
+ S. Bonavent., 2 Sentcnt., d. 39, a. i, q. 2.

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 131

is truth, we distinguish light from darkness in so far as the
truth is naturally impressed upon the heart of man".* Elsewhere
he says : " It is no small thing that, previous to the merit of
our good actions, we have received a natural judicial power,
whereby we are able to prefer wisdom to error, and peace to
trouble ".f

Conscience is both the law and the judge of the will, and
in both these offices it is the organ and representative of God.
It instructs us what to desire and what to fear, what to do and
what to leave undone ; and then it judges what we have done ;
applauds what we have done well, and rebukes what we have
done ill. It gives peace to the good, and terror to the evil.
In a word, and that word shall be St. Bernard's : " The con-
science is a mirror that reflects into the man the knowledge of
his exterior and interior condition. How can the man see
himself without a mirror? A good conscience is the bright
and pure mirror of religion. As a woman composes herself
to beauty in a glass to please her husband, the soul contemplates
herself in her conscience, and there sees how far she has gone
from the image of truth, and what she still retains of her Creator's
image." J

We therefore carry in our conscience, as the companion and
tutor of our will, the sense of God, the voice of His law, and the
mirror of our life ; and our conscience is at once the witness and
the judge of our conduct ; the approver of our good and the
punisher of our evil acts ; and the faithful recorder of our just or
unjust life. When this record of our life comes to an end with
the termination of our mortal years, it is sealed unto the day of
judgment, where God will condemn nothing that has been
blotted out by the tears of repentance, or consumed in the flame
of charity.

How perfectly the folded record of our conscience is preserved
within us we have it demonstrated in certain critical cases that are
historical. A sudden violence to the human system, under given
circumstances, has unfolded the whole volume of life to the mind
and heart in every page and line of its course, and that with an
instantaneous effect.

* S. August., De Civitat, Dei.

\ Id., Dc Libera Arbitrio, lib. ii., c. 20.

X S. Bernard, Dc Intcriori Dovio, c. xi.

132 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

If the conscience reveals the justice of God it is also a great
revealer of His mercy ; it warns us of approaching evil ; it ad-
monishes us under temptation, lest we fall ; it rebukes us with
severity when we have fallen, to bring us to repentance ; it
punishes us with trouble and distress of heart when we refuse to
repent. Nothing more beautifully exhibits the paternity of God
than His voice in the conscience of His children. That divine
voice takes every tone that our deservings or our needs require,
from the sweet and gentle accents of approval and encouragement
to the stern and severe tones of rebuke and condemnation.

The pride and sensuality that blind our understanding against
the truth act also through the imagination to obscure the light of
conscience. Then, instead of regulating our desires by our con-
science, we are too apt to regulate our conscience by our desires,
not because the true conscience can be false, but because it is
masked over with false imaginations. For self-love is a great
contriver in her own cause ; she listens more to herself than to her
conscience, and finds many pleas for her conduct which her con-
science, were it listened to, would not allow. And by this folly
and falsehood, to use the words of St. Paul, " the foolish heart is
darkened," for pride clouds the conscience, but humility makes
it clear and serene. Yet where self is not concerned, where the
question is to judge some other person, the light of conscience is
quickly found and as quickly applied, and is but too often taken
for giving evidence as well as passing judgment.

When we speak of an evil conscience we do not mean that the
conscience is evil, but that it is the witness of evil ; for conscience
is the light of God and the law of justice. The evil is not in our
conscience but in ourself, and the conscience is the witness and
judge of that evil ; when, again, we speak of the worm of conscience
or of the remorse of conscience, we put the cause for the effect.
The conscience accuses, condemns, and punishes, but the stings,
pangs, and bitings of conscience are the gnawing punishments of
self-condemnation, suffered with fear of yet greater troubles
within the heart of our evil self For the present self-condemna-
tion foreshadows the future judgment and the future punishment
beyond the present inward confusion and disorder ; and the
offended conscience leaves no rest or peace to the soul, but makes
her unhappy until she returns to God by repentance, after which
the conscience becomes tranquil, approving, and consoling.

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 133

Should we err in reading our conscience, whether from want of
light or of instruction, as even the just may do in questions
remote from first principles, whilst we obey our best lights, we err
without intention, and still commit no wrong, because we adhere
to the great principle of obeying our conscience as far as we have
its light. St, Paul, therefore, lays down the principle, that " all
that is not of faith is of sin," that is, all that we believe not to be
of conscience ; for faith, in this place, means fidelity to conscience.

Self is the subject of conscience and the disciple of conscience.
We have the inmost conviction that in listening to our conscience
we hear the will of God, and that in obeying our conscience we
are obedient to God. When, at the instigation of the passions
of our nature, we set up our will against our conscience, we can-
not resist the conviction that we are disobeying the voice of God.
When, on the contrary, we make our will one with the will of God
as revealed in the conscience, internal division ceases ; self is no
longer selfish; the whole man is at peace, and the peace and
joy of a good conscience is a paradise on earth. " Our glory is
this," says St. Paul, " the testimony of our conscience."

As the Eternal Word of God is the author of the natural as well
as of the revealed law of justice, we must naturally expect that
when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, He would
reassert the natural law and give to it new light and vigour. He
did reassert that natural law, especially as contained in the Ten
Commandments. He constantly appealed to the law of nature in
His discourses. He scattered the mists that had gathered over
its sanctions through a long course of human perversity. He
gave it fresh light in His parables. He appealed to the existing
consciences of men ; and He restored to the law of conscience
its power, beauty, and serenity. He made it shine more clearly
and act more forcibly through the light of faith and the discipline
of the Gospel.

St. James calls the Gospel " the engrafted word, which is able
to save our souls ". The word of faith is engrafted in divine light
upon the word of reason, and the law of Christ upon the natural
conscience. To borrow a figure from St. Paul, the fertile olive,
which is Christ, is grafted on the wild olive of the natural man, to
make the tree of human nature spiritually rich and fertile in the
fruits of light. "But the fruits of light," says St. Paul, "are in all
goodness and justice and truth."

134 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

The natural conscience is, therefore, the precursor of faith, and
obedience to the law of reason prepares the will to receive and obey
the law of grace. The Christian faith and law are, in fact, but a higher
and diviner reason, superadded to the light of Nature, which elevates
the conscience to a supernatural state, and gives it a divine truth,
divine motives, and a divine energy, to enlighten, lift up, and
invigorate the will to desire and pursue the soul's eternal good.
As the natural and the revealed laws come to us by different ways
from one and the same divine source and origin, they reunite in
the Christian conscience, and there the divine law gives its
brightness and perfections to the natural law, and to its observance
when obeyed in Christ for God's sake. It also gives to the
natural law its own supernatural motive and light, and its own
title to a supernatural reward. It is therefore the most reasonable
of all things to obey the law of Christ; provided we obey it
in its own sense and not in ours ; because Christ is the Word of
truth, the Eternal Reason Incarnate, who is the fontal source of all
reason whatsoever, whether natural or supernatural. For "that
was the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into
this world ". St. Paul therefore calls our Christian obedience our
" reasonable service ".

When the man is regenerated, when he receives the light of
faith and the grace of charity, by their help he turns anew to God,
and recovers the lost state of justice. The image of the Holy
Trinity is brightened in him ; the image of Christ, his Redeemer,
is sealed in light upon his soul ; the unction of the Holy Spirit flows
to his heart ; the instruction of the Church expands the light of truth
implanted in his mind, and draws out the details of the divine
law, whose principles are already in his conscience. As he
advances in virtue, and identifies his will more and more with his
conscience, his will becomes more and more luminous and more
sensitive to his conscience; and in the light of his conscience
he obtains a clearer revelation of his own nature, which makes
him sensible that without God's help and grace he is poor, naked,
blind, and miserable. There grows in him an abhorrence of sinj
as it separates from God and is destructive of himself. He
becomes humbled beneath the truth, which shows him things so
much greater than himself, and he is ready to exclaim, with the
patriarch, to God : " I am less than all Thy mercies, and the truth
Thou hast fulfilled to Thy servant ".

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 135

St. John Chrysostom has expressed all this in terms too clear
and lucid to be here omitted. "The more," he says, "we advance
in virtue, the more we reduce ourselves to nothingness. This
reduction of one's self to nothingness is the highest virtue. The
man of clearest sight sees the heavens at the greatest distance from
him ; and the more a man advances in virtue the greater is the
distance that he sees between himself and God. It is no small
part of Christian philosophy to know the real amount of our
deservings ; but we find that the man who knows himself best is
he who values himself the least. Abraham and David became
the most sincere with themselves after they had reached the
highest point of virtue ; yet Abraham declared that before God
he was but dust and ashes, whilst David compared himself to the
worm. Every saint has confessed his nothingness with a like
wonderful sincerity. Those persons, on the contrary, who have
the least knowledge of themselves are precisely the persons who
lift themselves up with arrogance. When speaking of persons
infected with pride, how common it is to hear remarks like these :
The man does not know himself; or. The man is completely
ignorant of himself.

" But when a man does not know himself, whom else does he
know ? Or what else does he know ? If he knows himself, he
knows everything. But if he knows not himself, he knows nothing
to any purpose. There was a certain one who said to himself :
' I will set my throne above the stars of heaven '. That one was
ignorant of everything. But St. Paul had no such arrogance.
After his great and brilliant deeds he called himself an abortive,
the least of apostles, and unworthy to be called an apostle. If
we wish to emulate him we must withdraw from our earthly
affections, for nothing keeps us in greater ignorance of ourselves
than the love of earthly things. The man who delights in the
glory of this world imagines that earthly things will give him
greatness; such a man may try a thousand times, and will yet
fail to reach the knowledge of himself; whilst the man who
despises himself obtains that knowledge with ease. And upon
once knowing himself, he makes good progress in the other parts
of virtue. But to obtain this beautiful knowledge he will have
to stand apart, and to keep himself free from the fluctuating things
that kindle such a flame in us. Then may he find out his native
vileness, and exhibit that Christian humility and philosophy by

136 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

whose help we lay hold of both the present and future good,
through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ." *

Truth itself is a law to our will, and equally demands our sub-
mission with the commandments. And in these days, when so
many men prefer opinion to truth, because opinion does not bind
them, this right of truth to the obedience of the will cannot be too
much insisted upon. For no man obeys his conscience who obeys
not the truth, and obeys it as it is in itself; because truth known
to the mind is a part of the conscience. Truth reveals to us both
our native darkness and our dependence on God for light : just as
the commandments reveal to us the just order of things and our
deficiencies from that order ; just, also, as the grace of God reveals
to us our native weakness, and makes us feel the need we have of
a strength more than our own, wherewith to obey the truth and to
keep the commandments. The higher the conscience is built in
the truth, the fuller it is of the light of law ; the more thoroughly
the conscience is imbued with the grace of Christ, the more
vigorously it censures the swelling movements of our selfish
nature, that lift themselves against the truth and will of God, or
resist His inspirations.

Such is the force of conscience, that though a thousand voices
spoke in our favour, the secret voice of conscience will overbear
them all. It will not be trifled with ; it will stand no lying ; a
thousand witnesses may speak in our favour, but instead of quiet-
ing the conscience it will only awaken its more earnest rebuke.
It will strike us, it will pierce us, it will suffer no false sentence to
interfere with its inexorable judgment. "The sin of Juda is
written with a pen of iron, with a point of a diamond, graven
upon the tablet of the heart" The flatteries that contradict the
conscience but provoke it to wound us with sharper stings and
keener pangs of remorse. Pride may cloud and darken our mind ;
sensuality may blunt cur sensibilities ; a long neglect of God may
harden us against the powers of conscience, but its light cannot
be extinguished. The diamond point is there, the shock of
sudden visitation may bare the soul to its light and sting once
more ; or, if death comes quicker than repentance, then drops the
veil, then vanishes the pride, then stands the soul face to face
before the conscience, with her dark record as its witness before
the justice of God !

* S. J. Chrysost., Horn. xxv. in Matt.

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 137

That we may better understand the power of conscience — and
what man would be without its light and guidance — let us suppose
it withdrawn from the human breast, and extinguished in the race
of man. God shall no longer assert His justice in the soul, or
inspire her with the fear of His judgments. Man is left to his
unbounded self-seeking ; his pride and his sensual appetites
have no curb, no restraint any lor^ger. His imagination is let
loose, without fear or restraint, upon his natural propensities and
passions. There is nothing any longer left to withhold him but
opinion and human law. There is nothing to curb him within.
But when conscience is lost what becomes of human law ? Where
are its principles to be found ? Where are its rights ? And where
its sanctions? What ground, again, is left on which to build a
public opinion? When the conscience of right and wrong has
taken leave of the soul of man, where can it be found in the social
life of man ? Where, again, must we look for the common sense
of what is, or is not, becoming, which is the foundation of public
opinion, since that also takes its rise from the human conscience?
Even the unjust laws and unrighteous judgments of men affect to
appeal to the common conscience, and to find their sanction in the
light of conscience.

But we are supposing a race of men in whom the light of con-
science has expired, and who are abandoned to themselves
without any interior illumination from the eternal law of God.
What will there be left of the constitution of man ? We shall not
even find that fictitious man who has been portrayed by Origen
and St. Chrysostom. Even the wicked man who wears the garb
of reason, like a stage costume, will not be left. Even the man
who puts on God's image, like a mask, to deceive his neighbours,
will be no longer found. There will be no more of those painted
men put forth as real men. For when conscience is gone from
mankind, hypocrisy must die out. There is no ground left to man
on which to raise a moral pretension. There is not a single form
of law or decency remaining out of which to make a cloak to cover
evil deeds.

Let us even grant the external coercion of human laws, however
impossible in the conditions of the case ; yet the interior bond of
conscience is dissolved ; the voice of God is no longer heard
within the man ; the stay that upholds rather than binds the will
is gone ; the moral tie that holds man to God has slipped away;

138 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

nothing is left to hold man to rule but the force of that external
legislation which prohibits the violation of its laws in open day,
leaving free licence to secrecy and the night. The eye of human
law searches nothing but public wrong ; it cannot penetrate into
the breast of veiled iniquity, nor reach the deeds that are com-
mitted in secret. Iniquity has only to invent certain habits and
costumes to cover its deformity, and to go about in by-paths
instead of breaking out in the open face of the world. What can
human law deal with beyond certain outbursts against human
rights and social order ? It cannot visit those hidden springs in
the man from which all evil issues into day. It cannot deal with
the sources of corruption. It knows nothing of sin, but only of
certain open acts of injustice. The cognizance of sin is the
mighty work of the ever-wakeful conscience, which is seated in
power close by the spring of the human will; enlightening, guiding,
arguing, entreating, rebuking, encouraging; rewarding the good,
and punishing the evil deed.

But were the conscience removed from its office, and its light
withdrawn, the cupidities, the lusts, the self-seeking propensities
of men would be like a world of prisoners let loose in the dark,
each running against the other, each overthrowing the other, each
in pursuit of his own licence and liberty; the whole multitude
contending against each other where all are seeking one and the
same thing. Thus whilst each one sets his will and pleasure upon
his own game, and is bent on satisfying his own pride, indulging
his own cupidities, and satisfying his own lusts ; what rivalries,
what jealousies, what contentions, what shocks of destructive
conflict would there be in the world, bestrewing the earth with
the savage remnants of human nature, reduced to the condition
of the fool who said in his heart, " There is no God ". *

It would be incredible, if it were not a great public fact, that
this age has produced a philosophy and a widely-diffused sect
whose ambition it is to reduce the world of man to the condition
above described. This impious sect has invented the theory that
it is not the will but the conscience of man which leads him to
error and brings him to misery. Conscience, say these enemies
of God and man, is that which troubles, resists, and contradicts the
free instincts of man, restrains his action, afflicts him and makes
him unhappy. There are two useful confessions let out in the pro-

* See Walter Montague's Miscellanea S^ritualia, 3rd Treatise, sect. iL

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 139

claiming of these propositions. The first admits that the man who
separates himself from God is afflicted and unhappy ; the second
confesses that he is afflicted and unhappy through the tremen-
dous power of conscience. When neglected, the conscience may
slumber, but when directly opposed by the will, it rises with ter-
rible force to assert its authority. We hear a cry from another
school of atheistic sophistry, a cry of distress, and in that cry the
confession that life, to them, is nothing but bitterness and misery,
for which the conscience is chiefly responsible. And so the
adepts of these sects propose to root up the conscience that God
has planted in man, and to substitute another conscience of
human manufacture, with some kind of civil state for its authority.
Philosophy, or the democratic state, or the two combined, that is
to say, the opinion of the multitude combined with the authority
of the multitude, is to form a new conscience for mankind after
the old one has been expelled — a conscience which shall represent
God no longer, but man alone ; not the individual man, but the
socialist, atheistical man. Self and conscience are to be one and
the same ; the unenlightened instincts of the inferior man are to
become the law of the whole man. The delirium of human pride
can go no further.

Conscience is not from us, but from God : He holds it in His
power, not we in ours. When God implants a conscience in His
intelligent creature, He implants it in the very essence of the spirit,
and knits it into all the powers of the soul, so that to destroy
the conscience would be to destroy the immortal soul herself.
If it were possible to pluck out the conscience, and to break off
the dependence of our spiritual being from God, a destruction like
this would be the annihilation of reason, intelligence, law, order,
the sense of good and evil, and whatever distinguishes man from
the beast Chaos is empty, dark, and void, until it receives light,
form, and order from the Spirit of God. The soul would be as
empty, dark, and void if it had not received a spiritual light, a
law, and a rule of order from the same Eternal Source. Happily,
as man has not the power to destroy his soul, he has not the
power to extinguish his conscience. As the expression of God's
rights over man, and as the lofty guide of man to his greater
good, conscience is in the keeping of God, and is safe from the
destructive power of man.

The purest as well as the highest energy of the human soul is

I40 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

charity, the principle of whose action God alone can give. There
are loves which are follies, and they may be more truly called by
grosser names. The love of God is the only power that can purify
and regulate the lower affections and give to them that dignity of
duty, and that innocence from harm, which make them safe and
peaceful. God is the first object, and the supreme object, of the
living, thinking, and loving soul. Tell a man to think on nothing
but himself, and you insult his reason ; tell him to love nothing
but himself, and you insult his conscience ; tell him to live for
nothing but himself, and you insult his heart, and all that is manly
and generous in his nature. Man is not made for himself: his
conscience knows it, his heart feels it, his mind acknowledges it
even when his conduct contradicts it. If he has the least degree
of humility, his soul is grateful that God has made him for what
is infinitely greater than himself, whatever it costs his nature to
reach his good.

St. Paul's great argument on the power of the law of Moses to
awaken the knowledge of sin is equally applicable to the law of
Nature in the conscience, and still more to the law of Christ. For
every law of conscience is a light that gives us four revelations.
First, it reveals to us the sanctity of God. Secondly, it makes
known what sanctity God demands of us. Thirdly, it shows us
our sinfulness in our shortcoming of the law, or our direct violation
of its precepts. Fourthly, it reveals to us our native weakness,
and the need we have of His help and grace, both to fulfil His
law, and to reach our eternal beatitude. These four great offices
are committed by God to every law that is revealed in our
conscience.

Listen to the anatomizing words of St. Paul. Mark how they
exhibit the darkness of self without conscience ; how they display
the action of the light of God within the conscience ; how
conscience reveals us to ourself ; and how self and conscience
stand contrasted with each other. " Is the law sin ? God
forbid. But I did not know sin but by the law : for I had not
known concupiscence, if the law had not said : Thou shalt not
covet." Here pause. The I, or ego, of man is himself. He
follows his concupiscence, but he does not know its destructive
character ; he does not know that it is opposite to the sanctity of
God, and to his own sanctity, and how destrucrive it is of his
good; until the light of the law of God in his conscience reveals

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 141

to him the evil of concupiscence, and forbids him to follow its
impulsions.

Let us now follow the text. " But sin, taking occasion by
the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence.
For without the law sin was dead. And I lived sometime without
the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I
died : and the commandment that was ordained to life, the same
was found death to me." Here pause again. In this most
awful, because most truthful, exposition of the natural inward
man, we find the ego, the I, the man's subjective will, or self,
taken hold of by sin, and working all manner of evil desire, for
the very reason that it is forbidden him by the law revealed in
his conscience. Before he knows the law, sin is dead, because
he knows not the will of God, and sin consists in disobedience
to the will of God. The evil is there, but it is a Wind evil, not
knowing the will of him that made us. It is evil, but it is not
actual sin. But when the commandment which ordains to life
becomes revealed to the will through the conscience, self-love is
provoked, pride resists, concupiscence is stimulated by the prohi-
bition that would bind its licence to oppose and disobey the law
of God : and that law, whose blessed office it is to enlighten the way
of life, becomes, through our disobedience, the cause of death.

St. Paul continues : " Therefore the law indeed is holy, just,
and good. Was that, then, which is good made death to me?
God forbid. But sin, that it may appear sin, by that which is
good, wrought death in me : that sin by the commandment might
become sinful beyond measure. For we know that the law is
spiritual, but I am carnal, sold unto sin." The law is holy, just,
and good, and when we compare ourselves with its light we dis-
cover the evil within us; but it also commands our obedience,
and when we disobey, we sin against the light as well as
against the command of our Creator, and thus, by the command-
ment, sin becomes sinful beyond measure. For the carnal man
is weak and prone to carnal things, whilst the law is spiritual and
invites to spiritual things ; but when this carnal man refuses him-
self to the law, and delivers himself to sinful inclinations, like
one sold unto slavery, he is delivered to a tyrannical master.
The Apostle is far from asserting that our nature is evil, for it is
the creature of God. This was the heresy of the so-called Re-
formers. What he asserts is that the will is too weak of itself,

142 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

without the grace of God, to rise above the natural tendencies
of our fallen nature, and to keep the commandments of God.
" For that which I work," he goes on to say, " I understand not.
For I do not that good which I will, but the evil which 1 hate
that I do. If, then, I do that which I will not, I consent to the
law, that it is good. ... I find then a law, that when I have a
will to do good evil is present with me : for I am delighted with
the law of God, according to the inward man : but I see another
law in my members, fighting against the law of my mind, and
captivating me in the law of sin, that is in my members," The
obscurity of this passage disappears when we understand that this
second introduction of the word law is used ironically. The law
in the members fighting against the law of the mind, and
which St. Paul elsewhere calls the law of sin, is not a law in
reality, but an habitual inclination of the man, which he obeys as
though it were a law, and which he opposes to the law of God.
The first office, therefore, which is performed by the law of
God, is to humble us in the truth, and to show us how far we are
from justice and from God ; and this fills us with fear and
humiliation. St. Augustine gives us this searching comment on
the text : " How can we doubt but that the law was given that
man might find himself? So long as God does not prohibit
evil, man is hidden from himself ; but when he receives the pro-
hibiting law he finds out his weakness. And when he dis-
covers himself, he finds that he is doing evil. Whither shall he
fly? Go where he will, he has himself still with him. Of
what use is it, then, to try to escape that self-knowledge which is
inflicted by his conscience ? " *

What, then, is the remedy ? St. Paul hastens to point it out.
That the remedy is not in ourself is most certain and obvious from
all that has been said, and from all that we know of ourselves.
But the light of faith reveals both our own weakness and the
remedy for that weakness, and St Paul points to both in his con-
clusion: "Unhappy man that I am, who will deliver me from this
body of death ? The grace of God by Jesus Christ our Lord."
As, in another place, the Apostle teaches that the whole work of
faith and obedience to God is wrought out by the strength of grace,
" I can do nothing of myself, but I can do all things in Him that
strengthens me ".

• S. August., Serm. cliv. dc Verbis Apost.

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 143

In further exposition we may quote two pithy sentences from
St. Isidore, " The creature," he says, " knows himself better
in God than in himself. The knowledge that he gets of himself
from God is light and open day ; but the knowledge that he gets
of himself from himself is comparative darkness, and may be
called the evening twilight. But when he discovers that what
knowledge he gets of himself from himself is unsatisfactory, and
goes to God for better knowledge, he obtains that better know-
ledge as in the day," Again, the holy Doctor says : "The first
gifts of God show us our culpability. Whilst we were under cul-
pability we thought ourselves just. But the Divine Physician
came to us, exposed our wounds, and composed Himself into a
medicine by His death, with which to heal the wounds He had
revealed." *

Since we are not an object to ourself ; since the fundamental
appetite of our soul is not towards ourself, but towards universal
good ; and since we are created to love God as the first principle
of all love ; how comes it that we can make ourself the object of
our love, and even the first object of our love. How can that
which is so barren be made the fertile object of affection ? On
what does self-love feed herself? Where does she obtain the fuel
for the fire of that overmastering self-delight that darkens or ex-
tinguishes every nobler love ? If we cannot live on self, how do
we contrive to live on self-love ? It must have a great deal of
nourishment, because from the growth and ferment of self-love
come the seven deadly sins, with their several broods of vices
and vanities. To live upon one's naked natural self would be like
feeding the body with its own substance, or like increasing the
flame of life without air or fuel, or like filling the cup with its
own emptiness. To bend back our affections directly upon our-
self would be to meet our conscience on the way, and so reveal
the whole imposture. To understand on what our self-love acts,
and from what it obtains nourishment, is one of the greatest
secrets of self-knowledge, the possession of which is the key of
self-control.

Love is the life of the will. Or, as St. Bonaventure puts it :
" Love is the force of the will uniting itself to some beloved ob-
ject ". Or, as St. Augustine puts it : " Love is a certain life that
unites, or desires to unite, two things together, that which loves
* S. Isidore, Senteni., lib. i., c. ii.

144 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

with that which is beloved ". This explanation of the nature of
love is simple and complete. The will is the subject in which we
love, that which the will loves is the object of its love. But if
love be the union of two things, that which loves and that which
is beloved, where is that object to be loved when we love ourself ?
How can self be at once the subject loving and the object that is
loved? For love requires an object different from ourself to
which we desire to unite ourself. As St. Augustine observes,
love attracts us to the object that we love, and draws us with
affection towards that beloved object. But how can self be drawn
and attracted towards self? Self and self are not two things, not
even two terms, but only one. How, then, can self desire self, or
be drawn to self, or be united to self, as if it were not the very
same, but another ? The explanation of this mystery of our nature,
as I have said, is the great key to self-knowledge.

Self-love, as we have repeatedly observed, is not directly exer-
cised upon self. It works in roundabout ways, and by the reflec-
tion of one's self in many things that are distinct from us. We
associate many persons and things with ourselves, and appro-
priate their qualities and virtues by a process of imagination as
though their properties were our own. After once appropriating
these desirable properties, qualities, or virtues, we clothe them
with our affections, and, losing the just distinction between them
and what is our own, we make these good things to be component
parts of ourself. Self-love is sensitive, subtle, secret, and circuitous
in her ways ; her delicacy lies chiefly in dissembling her selfish
motives, and in wearing the appearance of good intentions ; whilst
her appetite is large, gross, and voracious. She is like a net with
innumerable meshes, handled by self-complacency and self-esteem,
that catches up and brings home to her the gifts of God, the goods
of His providence, the virtues and good qualities of them that are
better than herself, and whatever good things she comes in contact
with. For this net is the triple concupiscence of the eyes, the
flesh, and the pride of life. What her self-complacency and
esteem take hold of she builds into her imagination and stores
into her memory ; there prides herself upon them, and displays
them as her property. She cloaks herself, in fact, with a thousand
good things, that, when the truth is sifted and justice done, will be
found to belong to her imagination rather than to herself. It is
in the imagination, therefore, that self-love forms that fictitious

SELF AND CONSCIENCE. 145

and objective image of herself, framed from so many borrowings
which she loves and worships for her veritable self

But when, by the grace of God, we come to His light that reveals
all things, and when we exercise that truthful justice upon our-
selves that we call humility, and give to all what in justice is
their due — to God what is due to God, to every creature what is
due to that creature, and to ourself what is due to us — we shall
find ourselves stripped of much that our self-love and our vanity
have appropriated, and reduced to our native poverty, which God
alone can enrich with His truth and good, whenever He finds us
sufficiently humble and sincere to ascribe His gifts to Him and
not to ourselves.

The full capacity of the soul for greatness can only be opened
by the grace and love of God. The great appetite for universal
good that moves in the depths of the soul, and of which self-love is
the corruption, can only be satisfied and contented by God. He
alone can open out this vast capacity, and fill this immeasurable
appetite for good. When the love of God is predominate in the
will, it embraces all other loves within the love of God, which
have their pure and beautiful order and noble generosity within
this love, and from this love. But when we make ourself the
centre of our love and the point of attraction, the very capacity
of the soul for pure love is contracted, shrunk up, and corrupted
with vanity and pride. Nothing is so narrow, nothing is so un-
generous, as self-love, except the pride that grows out of self-love.
The help, the kindness, the affection, even the polite flattery of
our friends, become so many mirrors in which self-love contem-
plates herself with conceit, and swells herself with importance.
Our temporal and social sorroundings, if they have any show in
them, pass through the reflection of self-love into self-conscious-
ness, as though they were of the substance of the man, and were not
those external things that are common to a circle of humanity.
The family, the social circle, the corporation, the order, the pro-
fession, to which a man belongs, with all its ancestry, excellence,
and reputation, elates the individual member with a corporate
pride, as though it were his own particular and personal glory.
And yet his own contribution to the corporate credit may be
small even to invisibility, or nothing to boast of. Again, what-
ever knowledge, instruction, information, or example the self-
loving man obtains from his fellow-men, he will lay an original

10

146 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

claim to, as though it were the product of his own mind and the
flow of his own fountain. " Behold, I am against the prophets,
saith the Lord, who steal my words, each from his neighbour."

In short, self-love is the unrighteous steward. The things his
master has intrusted to him he makes his own, and forgets his
master's rights in them. Closing one ear to the voice of con-
science, and the other to the voice of faith, and casting his eyes
down that he may not see God, with the secret and serpentine
embraces of his covetousness he draws all things from God to
himself, and closes the account. With the net of the three concu-
piscences self-love draws her materials from every one's grounds
with which to build that idol of the imagination, the fictitious
object of her love and admiration. Even the virtues, the charities,
and commendable manners that are seen or read of in the choice
portions of humanity, however far from her life and character,
self-love can find herself invested with, and make her own. These
are her paintings and cosmetics that deform instead of beautify-
ing, and make her a spectacle of conceit to God, to angels, and
to men.

Fictions of life like these made the prophet exclaim, in his
excess — that is, when rapt from himself he saw the truth in God —
that " every man is a liar ". He makes himself a falsehood with
the fictions of self-love, and this falsehood is the contradiction of
justice. But the humble man, who sees himself in God's light,
who knows what he is by nature, and what as the receiver of
God's gifts, who gives to God what is due to God, to every creature
what is due to that creature, and to himself what is due to himself,
and who is filled with gratitude to God only equalled by his lowly
estimation of himself, is that just and sincere man so often com-
mended in the Scriptures.

LECTURE VL

SELF AND CONSCIENCE AS UNVEILED IN THE
BOOK OF JOB.

" Behold my witness is in Heaven, and He that knoweth my conscience is
on high." — Job xvi. 20.

THE providence of God works in two directions that seem to
be opposite, but are both conservative of man. This is
equally true in the natural and in the supernatural order of provi-
dence. The hand of God opens to pour blessings on us, and
closes to take a firmer hold of us. The providence of prosperity
enlarges us ; the providence of adversity makes us stronger to
endure. The one takes us abroad, the other concentrates us
w^ithin ; prosperity exalts us, adversity brings us down to safety ;
prosperity invites us to gratitude, adversity builds us up in fortitude
and magnanimity ; thus, whilst prosperity should make us grateful,
adversity ought to make us generous. By what God gives us we
know His goodness ; by what He withholds from us we know our
weakness and our wants : the one is His bounty, the other His
discipline.

As the final end of man stands first in the view of God, and all
things ordained for man have that final end for their chief con-
sideration, the natural order of God's providence is directed with
a final view to His supernatural providence, whose immediate
object is our supernatural end. But this divine intention the
supernatural man of faith can alone perceive. In the first order
of providence, whilst man was yet innocent and evil was unknown,
all was prosperity. But, in hac providentia, in this present dispen-
sation, which is adapted to the fallen condition of man, one course
of the divine providence moves in the direction of prosperity,
and the other in the direction of adversity. The providence of

148 SELF AND CONSCIENCE

adversity is ordained for the preservation of the soul from herself,
from her self-love, elation, and pride, and to consolidate her in the
stronger virtues of faith, hope, patience, and fortitude. With the
gifts and advantages of nature God cherishes us in life : with the
privations and afflictions in which He leaves our nature, the same
divine goodness checks our presumption, reminds us of our depen-
dence, and detaches us from the allurements of this earthly life.
When man lost his innocence, and lost, with his innocence, his
union with God, an ever-prospering order of providence in this
world would have become to him the occasion of the greatest
dangers and evils ; it would have detached him more and more
from God, and have filled him with an insufferable love of himself.
It was therefore providentially ordained, by the benignity of God,
that the earth should produce thorns and briars, that man should
toil for his bread in the sweat of his brow, and that he should
encounter many tribulations. Whilst, therefore, the prospering
providence of God was ordained to keep us in the world, the
adverse order of that same providence is ordained to keep us from
the world, that it may not too much absorb our life, and also to
bring us back to conscience and to God. The providence of
adversity looks to our trial and to our education for the kingdom
of Heaven.

That higher, holier, and more direct providence of God, which
is manifested to souls in the order of grace, works also, like the
first, in two conservative directions. Here also we experience the
open hand of visible bounty, and the closed hand that holds the
soul under trial for her greater security. The gifts of divine grace
come from God to the soul in the open daylight of prosperity, or
in the obscure twilight of adversity ; at one time the soul is cheered
with the conscious and sensible presence of the divine lights and
graces ; at another they are given in darker, more secret, and drier
forms, of which nature is but little conscious. But the night of trial
is ordained to invigorate the soul with stronger faith and greater
patience. The will is called upon to brace itself with fortitude,
and to act less from the impulse of sensibility than from the strength
of principle. The constitution of the soul is invigorated by effort,
and is being prepared to act more purely and generously when the
open day of prosperity returns. In the order of His supernatural
providence God provides for each soul according to its actual
dispositions and requirements ; milk for the infants of grace ; sweet

AS UNVEILED IN THE BOOK OF JOB. 149

things for them who are but novices in the spiritual life; strong
meats for the strong, whom He would make yet stronger with a
hardy discipline.

The human soul is a deep abyss, whose inmost depths are un-
searchable to human eyes. God alone knows what mysteries
there are in those depths, and what are the subtle windings in her
ways that escape our view. Self-love has many refuges. Sensu-
ality is not all in the body, but has many secret ways of cleaving
to the soul. Pride is not all on the surface, its virulence lies
deeper, its bitterness is strongest in the roots, that lurk in the
deeper foundations of our nature, and are there concealed in
obscure caverns among the windings of the soul, and hidden from
observation. The prophet David, with all his light and clear-
sightedness, felt he had reason to say to God : " From my secret
sins cleanse me, O Lord ". And St. Paul found it not unwise to
say : "I am not conscious to myself of anything, yet am I not
hereby justified : but He that judgeth me is the Lord ". But God
searches the dark places of the soul as with lamps. The divine
light makes us conscious of God ; but our own darkness makes
us conscious of ourselves. As the ray of His light beams into our
souls, we see that God is light and truth ; when that light is with-
drawn, we know that we are darkness. He " enlighteneth every
man that cometh into this world ; and the light shineth in dark-
ness ". In the light of prosperity we are lighted up ; in the twi-
light of adversity we are humbled down. In consolation we know
the goodness of God; in desolation we know our own misery.
Two things the just man must learn that he may become more
just still, and two things he must practise. He must know more
thoroughly what he is of himself, and what he is by the grace of
God. He must take off his trust from himself, and must rest
his confidence wholly upon God.

But this is accomplished by the alternate opening and closing
of the hand of God's grace, at one time opening to us the serene
day of spiritual prosperity, at another closing upon us in the twi-
light of adversity. David felt the divine gale when he sang : " Oh,
how great is the multitude of Thy sweetness, O Lord, which Thou
hast hidden for them that fear Thee ! . . . Thou shalt hide them
in the secret of Thy face, from the disturbance of men." But
when he emerged from the trial of adversity, he felt its strength-
ening power, and how it detached him from trust in himself; and

15© SELF AND CONSCIENCE

he exclaims to all who are in like obscurity : " I said in the excess
of my mind, I am cast away before Thine eyes. Therefore Thou
hast heard the voice of my prayer, when I cried to Thee. Oh,
love the Lord, all ye His saints ; for the Lord will requite truth,
and will repay them abundantly that act proudly. Do ye man-
fully, and let your heart be strengthened, all ye that hope in the
Lord."

When this night of adversity falls upon the faithful soul, it is
eminently conservative, though it demands a great fidelity. For
though the grace that is given is dry, obscure, and secret, it is
strong and sustaining. As the soul is left without the conscious
sense of God's presence with her, she feels the weakness and
misery of her nature with a certain bitterness ; her native nothing-
ness is searched more deeply, and her darkness becomes more
sensible from the memory of her former light. Like the Apostle,
she receives from herself the answer of death, not to trust in her-
self, but in God who lifts up the humble. The severer grace of
God is cleansing her from her self-love, detaching her from the
subtle cleavings of sensuality, and mortifying the roots of her
pride. Through this interior discipline the soul gets a profounder
knowledge of herself; her will is called upon for more vigorous
exertion to meet her difficulties; her faith is deepened, however
unconsciously, by its greater exercise ; her hope calls for strength
by the apparently greater distance of its motive, and by the less
reason of truth that she finds in herself, and the greater need for
trust in God; and her patience concentrates the powers of her
soul into closer solidity. But if her trials fail to advance that
soul in the more solid and vigorous virtues, the fault is not in the
trial, but in the soul unfaithful to the proof demanded of her.

The right conduct of the soul under the discipline of adversity
is given with admirable perfection in the second chapter of Eccle-
siasticus : " Son, when thou comest to the service of God, stand in
justice and fear, and prepare thy soul for temptation. Humble
thy heart and endure : incline thine ear and receive the words of
understanding: and make not haste in the time of clouds. Wait
on God with patience : join thyself to God, and endure, that thy
life may be increased in the latter end. Take all that shall be
brought upon thee : and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humilia-
tion keep patience. For gold and silver are tried in the fire, but
acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation. Believe in God,

AS UNVEILED IN THE BOOK OF JOB. 151

and He will recover thee : and direct thy way, and trust in
Him."

When God subjects a soul to great trials because He would con-
solidate her virtues and accumulate great sanctity in her, He often
accompanies her internal trials with external adversities, and per-
mits external afflictions to befall her from the natural course of
providence, as well as internal visitations from the closed hand in
the divine and supernatural order. Trouble comes from the crea-
ture, wounding when least expected, as well as from internal deso-
lation. Nor are the authors of these troubles always actuated by
malice, like Satan with Job ; but persons with no evil intentions
will first misjudge, and then act on their misjudgment, like the
four friends of Job. But when trial is heaped on trial, from with-
out, from within, and on every side, and each of these trials gives
weight and keenness to the other, self-love finds nothing to repose
upon, pride has nothing left to feed upon, the whole subjective
creature tastes of bitterness. To trust in one's self seems a
mockery, for the whole spirit of the man is humbled, he finds him-
self out, and nothing remains but God, and hope, and patience.

It is not in prosperity that a man best knows himself. When
the world smiles upon us, and all things around us flatter our self-
love, our spirit must indeed be strongly united with God, if we are
not drawn out of ourselves, away from our lights, and weakened
in the central spring and force of our soul. Only the firmest
souls, well disciplined already in the two ways of grace, who
have secured a calm centre of life that is never allowed to be
intruded upon by whatever external movement, can so use the
world, when borne on the flood of prosperity, as though they used
it not.

When God intends to raise souls to a great and noble sanctity.
He does not trust them to prosperity. Sooner or later, openly or
secretly. He sends troubles from the world, or permits them
troubles from evil spirits, or troubles from themselves, either one,
or two, or all of these, according to their strength. By these
trials and reverses they learn to know themselves, they gain the
deep consciousness of the helplessness of their nature, and draw
closer to God from fear of themselves. Interior prosperity too
much prolonged, especially with weak and untried souls, is often
dangerous to advancement, more even than external pros-
perity on stronger souls. The soul gets elated with her gifts,

152 SELF AND CONSCIENCE

ruffles herself with conceits, and is contented with her surface
lights, whilst in her deeper heart and lower sensibilities, where the
roots of self-love and pride are by no means extirpated, the sharp
remedies of humiliation and trial are needed, before the soil of
the spirit can be purged and prepared for God's holier gifts of
light and sanctity.

The greatest teachings are in great examples. Not to speak
at this moment of the example of our Blessed Lord, in whom what-
ever is human is also divine, the Sacred Scriptures give us great
examples of human nature under the most terrible trials, where
what is but obscurely seen in ordinary cases is there exhibited
with a force and clearness that reveals our human nature to its
lowest depths. Of these examples the greatest in the Old Tes-
tament are those of Job and David, both princes, both rulers of
men. In the case of both these princes and prophets we behold
the history of a prosperity " mounting even to the heavens," and
then of an adversity " descending even to the abyss ". Yet each
of them recovered his prosperity with a more wise, serene, and
perfect soul. Both have left us the effusion of their souls, the
historic truth of which is guaranteed by divine inspiration. And
in both their histories we behold our human nature probed by.
suffering and sorrow to its lowest depths.

As a revelation of what is most hidden in human nature, there
is nothing like the words of Job, except the Psalms of David and
the Epistles of St. Paul, unless we may add to them the Con-
fessions of St. Augustine. Then the venerable antiquity of this
Book of Job, the sublimity of its composition ; the fact that it
records the words of a patriarch who lived outside, if not before,
the Law of Moses ; a book, nevertheless, that has been a pro-
found instruction both to the Judaic and the Christian Church ;
all these facts combine to give a singular and solemn significance
to its teachings. For the period of four thousand years the
patience of Job has been a proverb that has strengthened many a
weary mind.

Some have thought the Book of Job to be a parable, and
that Job had no personal existence. But, as St. Thomas observes
after St. Gregory, although this may not much concern us, as far
as the inspired doctrine of the book is concerned, it very much
concerns us as far as historic truth is in question.*
* S. Thomas, Prolog, in Joh.

AS UNVEILED IN THE BOOK OF JOB. 153

In the prophet Ezekiel we read: "When a land shall sin
against me. ... If three just men, Noe, Daniel, and Job, shall be
in it, they shall deliver their own souls by their justice, saith the
Lord of hosts." Here Job is numbered among living men with
Noe and Daniel. In the Book of Tobias it is said : " This trial,
therefore, the Lord permitted to happen to him, that an example
might be given to posterity, as also the patience of Job. For as
the kings insulted over holy Job, so his relations and kinsmen
mocked against his life." St. James also says, in his Epistle :
" Behold we account them blessed who have endured. You have
heard of the patience of Job, and you have seen the end of the
Lord, that He is merciful and compassionate." Thus, both the
Old and New Testaments unite in presenting Job to us as an
historic person.

To be brief, where much might be said, the Septuagint version,
the Arabic, and the old Italic identify Job with Jobab, who ruled
in the city of Jethem. He was the son 'of Zara and Bosra, the
fifth in descent from Abraham, through Esau, whose genealogy is
recorded in Genesis, and who is numbered among the chiefs of
Edom in Paralipomenon. A great deal of tradition supports this
view, as well as the Greek version of Theodotion. Everything
recorded of Job and his friends has a local character and colour ;
and there is a considerable coincidence in his history with names
of persons and places given in other parts of sacred history.
Then, Job is a conspicuous figure of Christ, a prophet of the
Redemption, and of the Resurrection from the dead ; and he is
celebrated as a saint both in the Eastern menologies and in the
Roman martyrology.

The Book of Job embraces two great subjects — the personal
trials of Job, and the controversy with his friends on the ways of
God's providence. The friends of Job take up the position that
God does not afflict the innocent, and that his sufferings prove him
to be guilty of hidden crimes. Against this position and conse-
quent accusation Job contends with all the might of his afflicted
soul. He defends his innocence before men, and as men measure
justice ; but he accepts the position that "no man can be justified
compared with God ". This maxim, which is seven times repeated
in the course of the dialogue, is the key of the whole controversy.
Finally, God intervenes to justify His servant. But the object of
this lecture is to treat of the personal afflictions and trials of Job

154 SELF AND CONSCIENCE

as they explain the more obscure mysteries of self and con-
science.

At the opening of the book, Job is a prosperous Arab chief,
surrounded with his family, ruling his people, and judging them
at the city gate. He is looked upon by his people with great
veneration for his piety, benevolence, and wisdom. Although
living under the law of nature, he is a man of deep faith, inherit-
ing the religious traditions of Noe and Abraham. He is a man
of prayer, and the priest of his family, offering sacrifices to God
in the faith of a Redeemer to come. He is fully conversant with
the doctrines of creation, of providence, and of the fall of the
angels. He is deeply conscious of the malignant influence of
the evil spirits, and of the good offices of the holy spirits. His
soul is keenly alive to the necessity and power of divine grace,
and he sublimely teaches that " the breath of the Almighty
giveth intelligence ". And, as we have said, he is both the figure
and the prophet of the Divine Mystery of Redemption.

Let us first hear his own description of his former dignity and
prosperity. " Who will grant me," he says, " that I might be as
in the months past, as in the days when God kept me. When
His lamp shined over my head, and I walked by His light in
darkness. As I was in the days of my youth, when God was
familiarly in my tabernacle. When the Almighty was with me,
and my servants round about me. When I washed my feet with
butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil. When I went
to the gate of the city, and in the street they prepared me a chair.
The young men saw me, and hid themselves : the old men rose
up in my presence. The princes ceased to speak, and laid
their fingers on their mouth. The rulers held their peace, and
their tongue cleaved to their throat. The ear that heard me
blessed me ; and the eye that saw me gave witness to me ; be-
cause I had delivered the poor man that cried out, and the father-
less that had no helper. The blessing of him that was ready
to perish came upon me ; and I comforted the widow. I was
clad with justice, and I clothed myself with my justice as with a
robe and a diadem. I was an eye to the blind and a foot to the
lame. I was the father of the poor ; and the cause I knew not I
searched out diligently. I broke the jaws of the wicked man ;
and out of his teeth I took the prey. And I said : I shall die in
my nest, and as a palm tree shall multiply my days. . . . When

AS UNVEILED IN THE BOOK OF JOB. 155

I sat as a king, with his army standing about him, yet I was a
comfort of them that mourned."

Such is the wise, holy, prosperous, and powerful Idumean
chief, who is destined, by his privations and suflFerings, to reveal to
mankind what man is in himself, and what by the grace and
strength of God. The holy patriarch is not punished for iniquities
committed, but is afflicted for the revelation of his virtues, for the
perfecting of his soul, and for the instruction of mankind.

When the sons of God came to stand before the Lord, and
Satan, after walking through the earth, came also to the Eternal
Presence, the Almighty said to him : " Hast thou considered My
servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a simple,
upright man, fearing God and avoiding evil?" Then Satan pleaded
the self-love and self-interest of Job. " Doth Job fear God in
vain ? Hast Thou not made a fence for him, and his house,
and his substance round about, blessed the work of his hands,
and his possession hath increased on the earth ? But stretch forth
Thy hand a little, and touch all he hath, amd see if he bless Thee
not to Thy face." Then, to prove that Job did not serve God
for temporal reward, but from faith and piety, the Lord said to
Satan: "Behold all that he hath is in thy hand: only put not thy
hand on his person ". Suddenly come the messengers of calamity
one upon another. The holy man finds himself stripped of his
possessions, bereaved of his children, and his house destroyed
over his head. He rose up, rent his garments, fell down upon
the ground, and worshipped, saying : " Naked came I out of
my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither : the Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away : blessed be the name of the
Lord". This is the language of one so just and so humble,
that at the very instant of his visitation, he can recognize what he
is of himself, and what by the good gifts of God's provi-
dence.

Then Satan stood again in the sight of God, and the Lord said
to him: "Hast thou considered My servant Job, that there is
none like him on the earth, a man simple and upright, fearing
God and avoiding evil, and still keeping his innocence ? But
thou hast moved Me against him, that I should afflict him
without cause." And Satan answered, and said : " Skin for skin :
and all that a man hath, he will give for his life; but put forth Thy
hand, and touch his bones and his flesh, and then shalt Thou see

156 SELF AND CONSCIENCE

that he will bless Thee to Thy face. And the Lord said to
Satan : Behold he is in thy hand, but yet save his life."

Outwardly and inwardly God permits Satan to test the just and
innocent man, until the trial comes nigh to the fountain of his
life. The body of Job is delivered up to the tempter, and also
his imagination, but the substance of the soul is sacred from his
touch. He is struck, in his bereaved condition, with ulceration
and loathsome disease from head to foot. The worms in his flesh
anticipate the grave, and over his festering state of misery he
exclaims : " I have said to rottenness : Thou art my father ; to
worms : my mother and my sister ''. His refuge is the solitary
heap of refuse by his once prosperous gate, where he casts his
quaking limbs, exposed by day and night to every change of the
elements. Consolation has left his soul ; darkness has overcome
his mind, that was once serene with light. His imagination is
assailed with fears and terrors ; his soul is filled with bitterness.
Thrown back from everything that had hitherto been his comfort ;
thrown back from every pleasant sensation through the sufferings
of his earthly frame ; thrown back from every agreeable image
on which his mind could repose, through the fears that haunt his
imagination ; thrown back from the sweet light of serene intel-
ligence, through the darkness that overshadows his mind ; thrown
back upon his naked soul, where horror contends with bitterness,
the afflicted man finds nothing to intervene between his conscience
and his denuded self, between God hidden in the cloud from
his mind and sense, and himself enveloped in suffering and
obscurity.

His wife is still left him, not as a comforter but as a tempter.
She rails at his simplicity, and with ironical advice tells him, in
no gentle terms, to " bless God and die ". And what is his reply ?
Softly he says to her: "Thou hast acted as one of the foolish women :
if we have received good things from the hand of God, why should
we not receive evil ? In all these things Job did not sin with his
lips." His three friends, when they beheld him, knew him not.
With Oriental vehemence they express their grief and their com-
passion. After which, " they sat with him seven days and nights
on the ground. And no man spake a word to him : for they saw
that his grief was very great." For those seven long days and
nights, watched by his silent friends, the afflicted man takes his
own silent refuge in his soul, which Satan cannot touch; and

AS UNVEILED IN THE BOOK OF JOB. 157

endures the pains of sense, the pains of outward and inward
privation, the horrors that spring from his affrighted imagination,
and the fears of uncertainty of what may follow. He contemplates
the helplessness of his nature, and explores the mystery of his
being.

After this long and dreary silence, " Job opened his mouth, and
cursed his day, and he said : Let the day perish wherein I was
born, and the night in which it was said : A man child is con-
ceived. Let that day be turned into darkness, and let not the
light shine upon it." In this mysterious outburst of what his
mind saw, his sensitive nature spoke in the strongest terms
of horror and anathema. And what he saw was the origin of
all human misery. He saw that original sin of the human race ;
he saw how it had descended in the conception and birth of man,
and how its calamities had come like a flood upon himself. The
purest souls see the consequence of that evil the most clearly.
Although the prophet Jeremias was sanctified in his mother's womb,
he exclaims, with an equal vehemence of malediction : " Cursed be
the day wherein I was born 3 let not the day in which my mother
bare me be blessed. . . . Why came I out of the womb, to see
labour and sorrow, and that my days should be spent in con-
fusion." Both the prophet of the Mosaic law and the prophet
of the natural law denounce the sin of Adam, says St. Jerome.
In their own miseries and sorrows they bewail the miseries and
sorrows of all mankind, and trace them to their primal source in
that criminal apostasy.

Job cursed not the day of his creation, but in judgment and
justice he anathematized that original evil which attended his
conception and birth. He wished to be an abortive from this
evil. His malediction, as St. Gregory observes, was not depraved
but holy, and in accord with that divine malediction, which was
passed upon the original sin of man. We are prepared, therefore,
to hear this man of faith ask of God : " Who can make him clean
who is conceived of unclean seed ? Is it not Thou who alone
art ? "

But we shall not embrace the full significance of the sufferings
and sorrows of this just and innocent man, unless we also contem-
plate him as an appointed figure of Christ. In the agonies of his
nature and the resignation of his soul he prepares us to contem-
plate the two wills in Christ, the human and the divine. In the

158 SELF AND CONSCIENCE

sacred agony of Christ, the inferior and sensitive will exclaims :
" Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me '' ; whilst the
superior will, one with the divine, adds the oblation : " Neverthe-
less not as I will, but as Thou wiliest". In his expiatory abandon-
ment and desolation on the cross. He first exclaims : ** My God,
my God, why hast Thou forsaken me ! " but, in expiring, he again
cries out : " Into Thy hands I commend my spirit ". So, in the
words of Job, we sometimes hear the voice of his inferior nature
in lamentation, and then of his superior will in resignation.
Again, Job, like Christ, whom he is prefiguring, has to contend, in
the fight of patience, with invisible as well as with visible adver-
saries, and at the same time to endure his own grievous sufferings
and utter desolation. But in the case of Job, God alone, who
secretly sustains him, knows the final issue of his sufferings.

His first exclamations are undoubtedly the cries of his inferior
nature, and after the maledictions upon that original sin that came
into existence with his nature, he says : " Before I eat, I sigh :
and as overflowing waters, so is my roaring. For the fear which
I feared hath come upon me : and that which I was afraid of has
befallen me. Have I not dissembled? Have I not kept silence?
Have I not kept quiet? And indignation is come upon me."
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But whoever
is called to a high and divine wisdom must first be purified from
the secret remains of self-love and sensuality with great and most
searching fears. To accomplish this refining of his spirit, the
whole nature of Job is pierced through with fears, not only of him-
self, but especially of such sins as may be hidden from his sight,
and of such weaknesses as are unknown to him, however visible
to the eye of God. Hence his often-repeated prayer that his sins
may be made known to him. " How many are my iniquities and
sins? Make me know my crimes and offences. Why hidest
Thou Thy face, and thinkest me Thy enemy ?"

While his friends sympathize with his sufferings, they are misled
by a stern and cruel error, which is fixed like a principle in their
minds. They are possessed with the notion that God afflicts
none but the guilty in this life, whilst He prospers the innocent ;
and of course they do not know that God has permitted Satan
to afflict Job, even to the verge of his life, to test his justice, to
give him the victory over evil, and to perfect his soul. Their own
grievous error is the ground of all their accusations, and it is

AS UNVEILED IN THE BOOK OF JOB. 159

against this error that holy Job directs his replies. But those
replies are mingled with his own reflections upon himself, and with
his prayers and complaints to God.

Eliphaz the Themanite opens his discourse with this charge,
and the rest pursue it to the end of the controversy. " If we
begin," he says, " to speak to thee, perhaps thou wilt take it ill :
but who can withhold the words he has conceived. Behold thou
hast taught many, and hast strengthened the weary hands : thy
words have confirmed them that were staggering, and thou hast
strengthened the trembling knees ; but now the scourge has
come upon thee and thou faintest; it hath touched thee, and thou
art troubled. Where is thy fear, thy fortitude, thy patience, and
the perfection of thy ways ? Remember, I pray thee, who ever
perished being innocent? or when were the just destroyed?"
The charge is most grievous and unjust, because the loss of his
justice and innocence is not concluded from any known mis-
conduct, but from his sufferings alone ; and so the charge falls, by
implication, upon the providence of God as well as upon Job, for
which reason God rebukes it in the end. Yet this judgment passed
upon Job, on his dunghill, was passed upon Christ on His cross.

But Job replies throughout with the firmest assertion of his
justice before men, although he will not assert his justice before
God. Judged by man's day he is innocent ; nor do his sufferings
prove the contrary. But before the infinite purity and justice
of God, he fears and trembles, not knowing what God may find in
him. He can establish his justice before men, and to them he
says : " God forbid that I should judge you to be just : till I die I
will not depart from my innocence. My justification, which I
have begun to hold, I will not forsake : for my heart doth not
reprehend me in all my life." But when the holy patriarch turns
from the judgment of men to the judgment of God, he holds
another language. " He alloweth not my spirit to rest, and He
fiUeth me with bitterness. If strength be demanded. He is most
strong : if equity of judgment, no man dare bear witness for me :
if I would show myself innocent, He shall prove me wicked.
Although I should be simple, even this my soul shall be ignorant
of, and I shall be weary of my life." Again, he exclaims : " I have
sinned, what shall I say to Thee, O Keeper of men ? Why dost
Thou not remove my sin ? and why dost Thou not take away my
iniquity ? "

i6o SELF AND CONSCIENCE

When, therefore, Eliphaz told his vision of the night, how there
stood one whose countenance he knew not, an image before his
eyes, and he heard a voice, as it were of a gentle wind, which
said: "Shall man be justified in comparison with God, or shall a
man be more pure than his Maker ? " Job responded in complete
accordance with the heavenly voice : " Indeed, I know it is so,
and that man cannot be justified compared with God. If he will
contend with Him, he cannot answer Him one for a thousand."

This is the keynote of the whole mind of Job. It is also the
cause of his inmost fears, lest there should be that found in him
that accords not with the justice and purity of God. This, also,
is the severest of his inward trials — that, oppressed with darkness
and withered with dryness, he knows not that these very storms
of tribulation are purifying his nature, and preparing him for
greater sanctity. He therefore cries out, in his anguish: "The
arrows of the Lord are within me, the rage whereof drinketh up
my spirit, and the terrors of the Lord war against me ". These
fears are shaking out from him the last remnants of trust in him-
self, and he exclaims : "Who will grant me that my request may
come : and that God may give me what I look for. . . . For what
is my strength that I can hold out ? or what is my end that I
should keep patience ? "

Amazed at the void in himself, when reduced to nothing but
himself; astonished at the weakness of his nature when left un-
sustained by any created help or sensibility, and, as it would seem
to him, deserted even by divine help, again he cries out : "I am
brought to nothingness ; as a wind Thou hast taken away my
desire ; and my prosperity hath passed away as a cloud. And
my soul fadeth away within myself, and the days of affliction
possess me."

Thus David, also, cried to God, when searched by trial to the
centre of his soul : " I am brought to nothing, and I knew it not. I
am become as a beast of burden before Thee, and I am always
with Thee." With a capacity for good that is so great, and with
an appetite for good that is so urgent, yet with such an incapacity
to live upon one's self, the soul that has lost hold of the external
creature has lost hold of the strength and comfort of her own
body; has lost hold of her pleasant imaginings; has lost the serenity
of her light ; has lost, above all, the assurance of peace and friend-
ship with God ; the soul in such a state of privation finds out her

AS UNVEILED IN THE BOOK OF JOB, 16 1

nothingness, finds out, with the fullest certainty, that she is no
object or cause of content to herself. So deeply is the nature of
the suffering patriarch searched through, that, in astonishment
with the spectacle, he exclaims to God: "What is a man that
Thou shouldst magnify him ? or why dost Thou set Thy heart upon
him ? Thou visitest him early in the morning, and Thou provest
him suddenly. I have sinned, what shall I do to Thee, O keeper
of men ? Why hast Thou set me opposite to Thee, and I am
become a burden to myself"

Then, turning from God to himself, he pours out his anguish
anew: "My soul is weary of myself, I will let go my speech
against myself, I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. I will
say to God : Do not condemn me \ tell me why Thou judgest
me so ? Doth it seem good to Thee that Thou shouldst calumniate
me, and oppress me, the work of Thy hands, and help the counsel
of the wicked?" The more he despairs of help in himself, the
more earnestly he turns to God for help : " Thou hast granted me
life and mercy, and Thy visitation hath kept my spirit. Although
Thou conceal these things in Thy heart, yet I know that Thou
rememberest all things. If I have sinned, and Thou hast spared
me for an hour, why dost Thou not suffer me to be clean from
my iniquity ? "

The sense of her remoteness from God, in a soul that has learnt
that there is nothing worth the soul but God, fills her with new
fears of His unapproachable majesty and sanctity. At the con-
templation of God, who has not yet appeared in our human
nature to reassure us. Job is struck with awe, and with consequent
dread of himself. He abdicates the whole reign of self-love, and
approaches his deliverance.

The clouds begin to move, and the light begins to dawn. The
inspiring voice of a serener grace begins to rise above the mean-
ings of the sufferer. His one desire and prayer is that God would
completely purify his soul. " Two things only do not to me, and
then from Thy face I shall not hide myself: withdraw Thy hand
from me, and let not Thy dread terrify me. Call me, and I will
answer Thee; or else I will speak, and do Thou answer me.
How many are my iniquities and sins? Make me know my
crimes and offences. Why hidest Thou Thy face, and thinkest
me Thy enemy? Against a leaf that is carried away by the
wind. Thou showest Thy power ; and pursuest dry stubble. For

II

1 62 SELF AND CONSCIENCE

Thou writest bitter things against me, and consumest me for the
sins of my youth."

We have seen the fearful process by which a man is stripped
of all things but himself, and the desolations by which the hidden
remains of self-love and pride are driven from their concealments.
We have seen the amazement and the terror, the contrition and
distress, of a soul searched through with lamps until she finds out
that she is nothing apart from God. We have seen how, amidst the
obscurations of the soul, the secret light of God's law in the con-
science fulfils its fourfold office, whilst humiliation and sorrow
are opening out the hidden things of that soul. Firstly, it reveals
the sanctity of God. Secondly, it makes known to him his own
want of sanctity. Thirdly, it exposes to him how helpless he is,
by nature, to rise above himself. Fourthly, it shows him what a
great need he has of God's light and grace, as well to know
himself as to remove his iniquity, and to bring him into union
with God.

Of the prophetic character of Job's sufferings, as he figures forth
the person of Christ, His innocence among the most malignant
accusations, and the terrible course of His passion and crucifixion,
we have the most vivid representation in the sixteenth chapter of
the record of his sufferings and sayings. " My enemy hath beheld
me with terrible eyes. They have opened their mouths upon me,
and reproaching me they have struck me on the cheek ; they are
filled with my pains. God hath shut me up with the unjust man,
and hath delivered me into the hands of the wicked. I, that was
formerly so wealthy, am all on a sudden broken to pieces. He
hath taken me by the neck, He hath broken me, and hath set me
up to be His mark. He hath compassed me about with lances.
He hath wounded my loins. He hath not spared, and hath poured
out my bowels on the earth. He hath torn me with wound upon
wound. He hath rushed in upon me like a giant. I had sewed
sackcloth upon my skin, and have covered my flesh with ashes.
My face is swollen with weeping, and my eyelids are dim. These
things have I suffered without the iniquity of my hand, when I
offered pure prayers to God. O earth, cover not thou my blood,
neither let my cry find a hiding-place in thee. For behold my
witness is in Heaven, and He that knoweth my conscience is on
high. My friends are full of words : my eye poureth out tears to
God. And O that a man might be judged with God, as the

AS UNVEILED IN THE BOOK OF JOB. 163

son of man is judged with his companion. For behold short
years pass away, and I am walking in a path by which I shall not
return."

The sufferings of all just men obtain their purifying value
from the sufferings of Christ, whether they anticipate and prophesy
the sufferings of Christ, or whether they follow and fill up the
measure of those sufferings. For the redeeming Head of
humanity suffers with the members, and the members suffer with
the Head. "All that will live godly in Christ," says St. Paul,
"shall suffer persecution." And this is equally true of the
prophets of Christ and the servants of Christ ; so much so, and
so mingled are the sufferings of the prophets of Christ with the
sufferings of Christ, that sometimes they plainly describe the
sufferings of Christ, and sometimes they more plainly describe
their personal sufferings. In every faithful soul the one is blended
with the other.

Against the ever-recurring accusations of his adversaries, Job
continued to assert his justice, and never for a moment wavers.
He is just according to their measure of justice. He is not wicked
on their argument and proof of wickedness, not wicked because
he is suffering. Such an argument, were it admitted, would
destroy the whole proof of human redemption, and this false
principle is therefore destroyed beforehand. It was essential that
the mind of men should be imbued with the truth, that innocence
may be present under great and overwhelming sufferings. But
whilst he indicates this general truth, the patriarch of suffering puts
the point of difference between the human and divine side of
his own case in this pithy sentence : " O that a man might
be judged before God, as the son of man is judged with his
companion ". That is, happy would it be for the man if the eye
of God looked no farther for his guilt than the eye of his fellow-
man can see. But before the Eternal Judge he has no defence to
make, because he has not the knowledge of himself that God has
of him. His life has been pure as men estimate purity. And he
solemnly declares : " I made a covenant with my eyes, that I
would not think upon a virgin. For what part should God from
above have in me, and what inheritance the Almighty from on
high ? " And yet before God, who sees the inner parts of man,
and judges him by the purest laws of humility, charity, and sanctity,
according to the bent of his motives in the light of his conscience

1 64 SELF AND CONSCIENCE

he cannot venture to assert his innocence, however unconscious
he may be of present guilt. So his thoughts turn back upon the
one burden of his wailing song : " Man cannot be justified com-
pared with God. . . , He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength :
who hath resisted Him, and hath had peace? . . . God, whose
wrath no man can resist, and under whom they stoop that bear up
the world. What am I, then, that I should answer Him, and
have words with Him ? I who, although I should have any just
thing, would not answer, but would make supplication to my
judge.''

The more a soul is made conscious of her nothingness apart
from God, the more need she feels for that fundamental justice
which we call humility, which subjects her to God, and opens her
spirit to the grace and inspiration of His Holy Spirit. This
enables her to deal justly and truthfully with God, and to look
hopefully and expectantly to Him for her deliverance from the
bondage of evil, whether open or secret, knowing that God is the
place of the soul, and that however distant He may be in consola-
tion, He is close at hand in presence and power ; the just man
therefore feels a certain secret sense of God's presence, whatever
dark clouds intervene, and is not altogether unconscious of the
secret strength with which he is sustained.

It is evident through all the lamentations of Job, that although
his conscience reprehends him not in all his life, yet he yearns
most earnestly for greater light of conscience, that he may see
whatever there is recorded against him, and so may know what he
has to condemn that he may not be condemned, and what he has
to punish that he may not be punished. " Let a man," says
St. Anselm, " go up into the judgment-seat of his mind, and set
himself before his own eyes ; and when he has set up judgment in
his heart, let his thoughts accuse him, and his conscience be the
witness ; and let fear be the executioner. Then let the blood of
his soul flow in tears on his confession. Let the image of the
future judgment stand before his eyes, and whatever he sees in
himself that the judge to come would reprehend and punish, let
him at once reprehend and punish in himself. For whether sins
be little or great, they cannot be passed over unjudged and un-
punished. They must be either condemned and punished by the
man, or be judged and avenged by God. But the divine vengeance
is stopped when the man is converted, for if we judge ourselves

AS UNVEILED IN THE BOOK OF JOB. 165

we shall not be judged \ by which we understand that we must be
punished in this life or in the life to come." *

Even in the darkest hours, when the words of Job sound almost
like accents of despair, the holy man was not unconscious of God's
secret support. We hear him, therefore, saying : " Thou hast
granted me life, and mercy, and Thy visitation hath kept my
spirit". And he even says : " Although He should kill me, I will
hope in Him : yet I will reprove my way in His sight ".

But when the cloud opens, and God draws nearer to His
servant, and he begins to see the divine intention for which his
sufferings are permitted, how sweet and touching are the words of
the reviving man. " Who will grant me that I may know and
find Him, and come even to His throne ? . . . But He knoweth
my way, and hath tried me as gold that passeth through fire : my
foot hath followed His steps, I have kept His way, and have not
declined from it. I have not departed from the commandments
of His lips : and the word of His mouth I have hid in my bosom.
. . . God hath softened my heart, and the Almighty hath
troubled me."

Then from the depths of that purified heart springs up the
complete expression of Job's faith and trust : " I know that my
Redeemer liveth, and on the last day I shall rise out of the earth ;
and I shall be clothed again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall
see my God ; this my hope is laid up in my bosom ".

We have heard three voices from the soul of Job : the voice of
wailing over his denuded, helpless, and suffering self ; the voice of
conscience justifying him before men, accusing him before God ;
and the voice of faith, to which, through all his trials, he holds
with unwavering steadfastness ! We have yet to hear the voice of
God reinvigorating and comforting His servant ; and again the
voice of Job, subjecting his soul to God in humiliation for his faults,
and in gratitude for his justification and deliverance.

The Lord answered Job out of a whirlwind, and after rebuking
him for wrapping up counsel in unskilful words. He said to Job :
" Gird up thy loins like a man ; I will ask thee, and answer thou
me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ?
Tell me, if thou hast understanding." Then follows that magni-
ficent chain of questions on the creation and providence of God.
The mind of Job is humbled into conscious ignorance, and the
* S. Anselm, in Epist, ad Corinth., c. xi.

x66 , SELF AND CONSCIENCE

conceit of his wisdom purified ; and in a lowly spirit he replies :
" What can I answer, who have spoken inconsiderately ? I will
lay my hand on my mouth. One thing I have spoken, which I
wish I had not said ; and another, to which I will add no more."

In three ways our Creator questions us. He strikes us with
the rod of trial, that we may answer by exhibiting the extent of
our patience and resignedness. He puts some hard command on us,
that we may answer by showing the extent of our obedience. He
opens certain truths to our understanding, whilst He keeps others
in His divine reserves, and questions us upon them, that we may
manifest the measure of our humility. Thus God questions us by
afflictions, by demands upon our will, and by the exposure of our
ignorance ', and He exacts the reply of patience, obedience, and
humility. The Almighty opens out the wonders of His creation
to Job. This is His interrogation. Job replies by humbling him-
self to the dust before the Might, the Majesty, and the Wisdom
of God. Made conscious of his ignorance, he yields his own
poor conceptions of God's works to those grand conceptions of
them which God has given him. Yet he perfectly understands
that these sublimer views of them are so far from being the full
mind of God, that they are only adaptations of the truth to his
own limited understanding, and that what is most wondrous
in those works is only known to the divine intelligence.
*' Whence then cometh wisdom ? And where is the place of under-
standing ? It is hidden from the eyes of all living. God under-
standeth the way of it, and He knoweth the place of it."

After Job had heard all the words of the Lord, he replied, as he
was commanded, to the divine interrogation : " I know that Thou
canst do all things, and no thought is hidden from Thee. Who
is this that hideth counsel without knowledge ? Therefore I have
spoken unwisely, and things that above measure exceeded know-
ledge. Hear, and I will speak ; I will ask Thee, and do Thou
tell me. With the hearing of the ear I have heard Thee, but
now my eye seeth Thee. Therefore I reprehend myself, and do
penance in dust and ashes."

As sight gives us a far more perfect knowledge than hearing, so
does the purified spirit of Job give him an incalculably greater
knowledge of God and himself, than the knowledge he had before
his sanie spirit was purified by suffering and self-searching. What
was before to him but as the voice of God whispering from a

AS UNVEILED IN THE BOOK OF JOB. 167

distance is now as a vision of God. " I have heard Thee, but
now my soul seeth Thee.'' The darkness that makes the soul
sensible how God is. her light and comfort has departed: the
desolation that taught him his nothingness before God is gone.
A serene humility has taken the place of that scouring affliction,
and rising up from his sufferings, the holy man is filled with light,
and refreshed with the sweetness of the Holy Spirit. His con-
science has borne witness to the rectitude of his intentions ; but
now he sees so much more clearly what God is, and what he is in
himself, that the holy chief, with awe and reverence, falls prostrate
before God, and confessing his weakness, with profound humility
exclaims : " I condemn myself, and do penance in dust and
ashes ".

On this conclusion St. Gregory remarks : " The less a man sees
of himself, the less he is displeased with himself The more
light and grace he obtains, the more he knows that he is repre-
hensible. When raised up in his inward powers, he sees a law
of life above him, and he strives to come up to its level. But
soon he finds that his weakness holds him back, and that in many
things he falls away from that law of life ; for he feels a heavy
burden upon him that keeps him down from the perfection of the
law. After trials had scoured and searched his nature through,
the blessed Job was brought very near to the law of life ; its light
shone fully upon him, and this caused him to turn with keen
rebuke upon himself, and to say : ' I condemn myself. But self-
condemnation calls for penance and punishment, which caused
him to add : ' I do penance in dust and ashes '. Whoever stands
before God with true knowledge of himself, knows that he is but
dust and ashes. Abraham had this true knowledge of himself,
and, prostrate before God, he also said : * I will adore the
Lord, who am but dust and ashes '. Dust and ashes humble the
body with punishment after it has caused the soul to sin. Rude
discomforts to the flesh express the compunction of remorse in the
soul. Dust and ashes remind us that as God has made us from
the dust we ought not to take to ourselves the glory of His gifts ;
and remind us also that through God's sentence on our sin, our
bodies shall return to dust and ashes." *

Then God made the blessed Job the intercessor for his friends,
and said: "Go to my servant Job, and offer for yourselves a holo-

* S. Greg. Mag., Moral, in Job, lib. xxxv., c. 5.

x68 SELF AND CONSCIENCE.

caust : and my servant Job shall pray for you : his face will I
accept, that folly be not imputed to you : for you have not spoken
right things before me, as my servant Job hath. So Eliphaz, the
Themanite, and Baldad, the Suhite, and Sophar, the Naamathite,
went and did as the Lord had spoken to them : and the Lord
accepted the face of Job. The Lord also was turned at the
penance of Job, when he prayed for his friends. And the Lord
gave Job twice as much as he had before."

We cannot better conclude than with the words with which
Origen brings his Comment to a close : " Blessed are they who
imitate thee, O most blessed Job. Blessed are they who follow
thy steps ; blessed are they who like thee are consummated in
faith and piety, by enduring whatever befals them. They will
rest eternally with God the Father, to whom be glory for ever.
Amen."

LECTURE VIL

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.
" Thou art not a God that willeth iniquity." — Ps. v. 5.

KNOWLEDGE becomes wisdom when it reaches the heart
and draws the will from evil to good. Next to the
knowledge of God and of His gifts, there is no knowledge that
clears the mind from so many delusions, solves so many of the
mysteries of life, or more effectually helps us to the wise shaping
of our conduct, than that which gives us a clear insight into
the origin and tendency of evil, to which we justly ascribe all our
failures, sufferings, and miseries.

To search evil through with intelligence is like searching
darkness through with light. To sense and imagination darkness
looks like something positive and even substantial; but where
the light enters the darkness disappears, and we see that it is
nothing whatever but the absence of light, that darkness is in
fact but nothingness. Nevertheless, as darkness seems to fill
space, and so presents an image to the imagination, it is difficult
for the intelligence to correct the error of the imagination, and
the more difficult because in our childhood, when we live by
imagination, darkness is an occasion of terror, which the age of
reason and experience alone corrects. The minds of a great
many persons outside the Christian faith are not unlike those
of children in this respect, that they mistake shadows for sub-
stances, and materialize what has no material existence ; nor does
culture always exempt them from this infirmity.

In what concerns the character of evil or the cause from which
it springs, this kind of error has been conspicuous in all ages

I70 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

among men who have not communion with God; and such
errors have been fostered not only through the predominance of
imagination, but also through the genius of language. Good is
that which exists; but evil is the negative of good, and conse-
quently it is the privation of existence. But language is always
affirmative in its form ; it affirms that which is not as well as that
which isy and the habit of affirming negations gives to that which
does not exist a semblance of existence. We not only speak but
think in language, and this often deceives those minds that rest
more on the forms of language than on their internal clearness of
thought. We do not express a denial of existence by the simple
term not, which would be a pure denial of existence, but we say
it is not, which affirms the negative, as though that negative had
some kind of existence. Clear thought alone corrects this
infirmity of language. This form, however, is not so apt to mis-
lead careless or defective thinkers so much as those positive terms
which express things without substantial existence in substantives.
For example, we use the term shadow, and imagine it to have an
existence, although it is only the absence of light. We imagine
hunger to have a real existence, although it is only the want of
food. Thus we assign the inconvenience we suffer from the
absence of light to some positive cause in the darkness ; as we
assign the pangs arising from want of food to some positive cause
in our hunger, which is a mere negation. In like manner we
confound the pains and sufferings brought on us by evil with the
evil itself, although that evil is nothing but the privation of good,
but of a good due to our nature of which we have deprived our-
selves. This habit of affirming the existence of evil as though it
were some positive thing, and the further habit of confusing the
pains and sufferings that follow upon evil with the evil itself, are the
causes that have so often led to the notion that evil is either some
substantial thing, or some quality or power in the creation. This
substantiating of evil, which is a mere product of the imagination,
has given rise to many false philosophies as well as heresies,
upholding the idea that evil has an external existence, and has
either had a divine creator, or is something evolved from the
creation.

How men came to mistake evil for something substantial, has
been well explained by St. Athanasius in the following passage
of his great Oration against the Gentiles. "It has become

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 171

needful," he says, "to clear up this idle opinion with the truth of
ecclesiastical doctrine, which holds that evil is neither from
God nor in God ; nor was it from the beginning, nor is
there any nature of evil. But as men withdrew from the con-
templation of good, they began to imagine and to devise to
themselves, according to their will, such things as were not.
Whilst the sun is shining and lighting the earth, a man may close
his eyes and think he is surrounded with darkness, even when all
is lightsome ; but he walks in his imaginary darkness, and
stumbles, and encounters rocks and rough places, fancying he
has no light but is surrounded by darkness, and imagining he is
using his eyes though he sees nothing. In like manner, when the
human soul closes those eyes wherewith God may be seen, she
fashions evils to herself, and whilst she moves among them, she
imagines she is doing something, and is ignorant that she is doing
nothing, for the things she imagines have no real existence. As
she has not persevered in that condition in which she was created,
she appears in that state into which she has degraded herself.
For she was created to see God, and to be enlightened by Him ;
but instead of God, she has gone in quest of uncertain things and
of darkness, as the Scripture says : * God made man right, and he
hath entangled himself in an infinitude of questions '." *

St. Athanasius here points to three causes that co-operate in
bringing man to evil, and leading him to mistake it for good.
First, in turning his mind from God he exchanges light for
obscurity, and mistakes that obscurity for light ; secondly, he
projects his imagination into that obscurity, fancying things to be
there that are not there ; thirdly, in its absence from truth and
good his will is predisposed to accept that for truth and
good which is only imaginary. Thus error, which is nothing, is
mistaken for truth, which is the light of things. Thus evil is
mistaken for good, although it is nothing but defection from
good.

Error and evil are so closely allied, that he who does an evil is
said to commit an error, but the error is commonly as much the
fault of the will as the evil which follows the error. Error is the
corruption of truth as evil is the corruption of good j in error we
take imaginary for actual truth, as in evil we take imaginary for
real good. But in both cases it is the will that is in fault ; for in

* S. Athanas., Oral, contra Gentiles, c. vii.

172 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL,

the first case it is the will that accepts and gives its assent to an
image of the imagination or to an opinion, as though it were the
truth in its clear evidence ; and in the second case the will gives
itself to imaginary good as though it were the real good that
perfects our nature. From this it follows that the created will is
the author of evil.

To a mind endowed with faith and humility, the origin of evil
presents no difficulty ; faith opens the mind to divine principles,
and humility puts that mind in the just point of view for appre-
hending their application. When the soul thinks in the light of
God, and realizes to herself His supreme and absolute perfection,
and then considers how evil is opposed to that perfection, the
very possibility of God being the author or the cause of evil must
vanish from the mind as an inconceivable absurdity. Even the
natural reason of man, when freed from fancies and prejudgments,
that is, when exercised in its own clearness, must bring us to the
same conclusion. For you cannot think of God as the author
of evil without first thinking of Him as less than God.

When we come to consider what it is that inclines the will to
accept imaginary for real good ; and again, what it is that inclines
men to invent false and plausible theories of the origin of evil, we
are brought to the very roots of our weak and selfish nature.
The first cause is to be found in the weakness of the creature,
made from nothing, and, when not resting on God for support,
inclined by nature to its native nothingness. The second is the
self-love of the natural will, inclining the soul to inferior things,
over which she can hold sway, instead of to those superior things
to which she must be subject, as being herself inferior to them.
These two defects explain the origin of human evil. But when
we come to explain the false theories on the origin of evil, we
must add a third cause, and that is the pride that springs from
self-love, and which generates in the soul a false and imaginary
estimation of herself, which inclines her to ascribe to herself the
good she does, or imagines she does, and to some other cause
the evil that she suffers from.

It is not difficult to find examples of this temper. Who has
not known persons who are always in trouble, but never in the
wrong? Such persons are proud, sensitive, suspicious, and
irritable; they have a great sense of evil, because they suffer much,
but they never see the cause of evil in themselves — it is always

ON E VIL AND THE ORIGIN OF E VIZ. 173

in isome one else. They do wrong-headed things, but never
know, or never admit, that they are wrong-headed ; as their best
friends have been the most active in their interests, they
generally imagine them to be the cause of their chief suffer-
ings. But those who look on with calm eyes see clearly that
the evil is in themselves, and that the root of it is pride.

Pride blinds the mind to the errors and the evils which it
works in its possessor. But there have been giants of pride,
with great intellects that pride has greatly perverted. With
strong imagination, and an oppressive sense of the evils from
which they suffer, yet blinded with the notion of their own
excellence, and flattered in that notion by their admirers, in
their ignorance of themselves these giants of pride will naturally
ascribe the origin of the evil from which they suffer to another
cause than themselves, and to a greater rather than to a less
cause than themselves. Hence arose the theories that ascribe
the cause of evil to a first principle of evil, or to some evil
divinity who mingles his evil work with the good works of the
God supremely good. Whether these theories first originated
in Bactria, in Chaldaea, in India, or in Persia, they pervaded the
religious philosophies of all those countries; and were rife in
Persia when Christianity began to spread in the world, as well
as other doctrines equally wild and fantastic, such as that of the
origin of darkness, and that of the delusive nature of the material
creation. But the disciples of these doctrines attempted to com-
bine them with the Christian faith, and from this mixture arose
the most monstrous sects that the Church has had to contend
with, from the early Gnostics, with their endless diversities, to the
successive forms of the Manichean heresy.

As error is the corruption of truth, and as the long-delivered
traditions of mankind are especially open to corruption, where
not divinely protected, we may glance for a moment at those
early traditions of truth that may have been warped and perverted
into supporting the doctrine of an evil principle or deity. The
creation of the angels, and the fall of a part of them into evil,
might be easily perverted into an emanation of good and evil
divinities from the profundity of one first principle. As the fall
of Satan and his perversion of man brought evil into the world,
this great tradition, again, might easily be perverted, under certain
conditions of mind, into an evil principle, or a divine author of

174 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

evil. When the imagination of man is once taken hold of by
the Pantheistic fancy, it is marvellous what it is capable oi
imagining, and then assuming to be in real existence. For
example, the Gnostics imagined such abstract notions as eleva-
tion and profundity into real divinities. And the pagans gave
a special divinity to every visible object, however vile. Such is
the force which imagination may acquire, when it is allowed to
rule the light of intelligence.

If from the outward we turn to the inward causes of these
fearful errors, we need go no further than those gloomy imagina-
tions stimulated by intellectual pride, in men oppressed by a
burdensome sense of evil, who look everywhere except within
themselves for the evil cause of their sufferings, and who could
not be more flattered than by ascribing their evils to an evil
creator, or to some principle of evil beyond their power. Some
kind of fatalism, beyond the power of the sufferer to remedy, has
always had an attraction for gloomy minds that love to brood
over their miseries. Nor do such minds want a prompter in the
enemy of man. Not to speak of the power of evil spirits over
self-absorbed and brooding melancholy, the tempter of mankind
has a singular interest in doctrines like these. It was in aiming
at self-deification that Satan and his angels fell from good to
evil, and their work is to prompt to pride, and to the errors that
foster pride in human souls. Especially are they interested in
errors that seem to justify evil When Satan comes upon a soul
filled with pride like himself, oppressed with the evils that come
of pride, blinded through its influence from all true insight into
herself, and looking everywhere for the cause of her miseries
except within herself; Satan has only to present himself to the
imagination in some secret way, as the author of evil, to obtain
that deification which he failed to win by his apostasy from God.
Since he first compassed the fall of man, he has obtained two
great victories over large portions of the human race : the one
has been to get himself deified as the author of evil ; the other
has been to get his very existence denied as the tempter of man
to evil.

In various shapes and under various designations, the doctrine
of the origin of evil from an evil principle vexed the Church of
God in sect after sect, from her earliest period until the fourteenth
century. Perhaps even now the doctrine is secretly maintained

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN 01' EVIL. 175

in some form or other among sects and societies opposed to the
Church. It would seem as if Satan was ever ambitious of having
a church of his own by the side of God's Church, where he may
receive homage as the principle of evil, in rivalry with the wor-
ship of God. Yet the older philosophies and heresies kept
themselves clear of ascribing the authorship of evil to the One
God supremely good. It was left to the early Reformers to origi-
nate the blasphemous doctrine that the One True God is the
author of evil. It followed their denial of human free will as a
matter of course. Their contention that the evil of sin, as
Luther maintained, was of the very nature of fallen man ; or that,
as was generally maintained by the early Reformers, it was
something inherent in fallen human nature, which is not removed
but covered by the justification of Christ, betrays the grossest
ignorance of the negative character of evil. These errors most
seriously affect their whole teaching as it respects the relations of
man with God.*

The doctrine of the Church as opposed to these fundamental
errors is expressed in the Creed of Eugenius IV. for the Jaco-
bites, in the following terms : " The Holy Roman Catholic
Church, founded by the voice of our Lord and Saviour, most
firmly believes, professes, and teaches that the One True God,
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is the Creator of all things visible
and invisible, who by His goodness made all things when He
willed, both spiritual and corporal ; they are indeed good, because
they are made by the Supreme Good, but they are changeable,
because they are made from nothing. And she asserts that there
is no nature of evil, because every nature, in so far as it is nature,
is good." t

Whatever is not God must be limited in its nature. There
can only be one infinite, eternal, full and complete Being, one
Supreme Good that is perfect in every kind of goodness. To
suppose the contrary is to put limits to that Supreme Good, and
to leave nothing unlimited, not even God Himself. There
cannot be another infinite communication of good beyond that
of the Three Persons in the one life and substance of God.
Beyond that divine and internal communication of good, the
sphere of limited good alone remains possible. The plan of

* For example proofs, see Mohler's Symbolism,
+ Denziger's Enchiridion, N. 600.

176 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

creation is eternal in the mind of God, and in that plan is the
inevitable law of limitation, and of succession in time, which
is one of the modes of limitation. It is not, therefore, the
substance, but the divine plan of the created universe which is
eternal.

The will of the Almighty is the first principle of power, and
the cause of all created power. Even the power of the human
will is of God, although man has the free use of that power.
God created all things good, each according to its kind, degree,
and measure. He pronounced each order' of creation to be
"good," and after the whole creation was completed, He pro-
claimed it to be "very good," thereby affirming that there was
nothing evil in His works. Each particular creature is good as
far as it exists, and in the measure in which it exists ; it is good of
its kind. Each creature, again, has more or less of good as it is
nearer to or farther from God in resemblance, or shadow of
resemblance to God, who gives substance and form to all good.
An intelligent spirit with a will that is the free cause of her own
acts, and that is pure and beautiful, is a very great good, because
she is not only in the likeness of God, but she receives a divine
good from Him. A grain of earth, which has but a rudimental
existence of which it is unconscious, has no resemblance beyond
that rudimental existence. Yet even that grain of earth is good,
and is endowed with capacity for greater good. It may become
part of the organization of a plant, and may ultimately become a
portion of some human body, animated and ruled by a living
soul.

Every creature is good in two ways : in what it is already, and
in its capacity of becoming better by the addition of greater good.
We shall never understand how much evil is opposed to good
unless we take into account, not only the actual good that evil
destroys, but also the greater good which evil prevents the
creature from receiving. The making of each creature is but the
beginning of its good, then it increases by the addition of more
good, and God has provided one good for another with inexhaus-
tible profusion. The law of constant augmenting and ascending
good is the law of God's providence. Even the decay of the
mortal part of man enters into this law of augmenting good,
because it removes obstacles to the enriching of the immortal
part. This law of augmenting good reaches its highest fulfilment

ON E VIL AND THE ORIGIN OF E VI L. 1 7 7

whenever a creature is united to the greatest good of which it is
capable.

There is a fundamental principle in the order of God's creation
that gives the key to the divine plan of His providence. Every-
thing is made for some object and end exterior to itself, in which
it finds its greatest good. The higher the order of the creature
the greater the end for which it is made, and the nobleness of the
creature is derived from the nobleness of the end for which it is
made. In estimating good and evil this principle must be ever
kept in view. Know the object for which any creature is made,
and you will know the good of which that creature is capable,
and you will also know the extent of loss and ruin which evil may
bring upon it. As intelligent creatures are made for God
and He is their final good, the evil which turns them from God
deprives them of an infinite good. Material things are also made
for God, who "hath made all things for Himself," but they either
form a part of man, and so serve God in man, or they serve the
uses and pleasures of man, and have their end in him.

The earth of which man's body is formed reached not its end,
or greater good, until it was transformed into the body of man.
The body of man reached not its end until it was filled and
animated by a spiritual soul. The soul reached not even the
beginning of her end, until God gave her the supernatural light
and grace which begins her communion with God. The soul
brought into divine relations with God does not reach the con-
summation of her good, until advancing by degrees on the way of
truth and justice, she reaches the open vision of God, and finds
the fulness of good in her beatific union with Him.

The material creatures are placed as veils between God and the
soul during her time of trial on this earth. Taken in this light,
they are the instruments of trial ; and their limits have to
be transcended before the mind and heart can rest upon divine
things. Passively obedient to the will of God, these visible
things are also subject to the will of man. They are not only
veils that curtain round the spirit of man, obscuring his vision of
the spiritual things that are all about him ; but they are also trials
in this respect, that he has to exercise himself in the denial of
them as well as in the acceptance of them, and that he obtains
the greater good in proportion as he refrains his spirit from the
quest of them. For the soul cannot ascend above the earth if

12

178 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

she cleaves to the earth, more than the winged bird ; and beyond
his material needs, these material things are appointed for man
to overcome by strength of will and victory of soul, in his ascent
to higher things.

Since the body of man has become mortal through his fall, the
soul has grown feebler with the weakness of the body, and the
elements of the material world have been made harder and
sharper to him as instruments of trial, and that most mercifully,
since he is so much weaker in yielding to their seductions. God
took away a portion of His blessing from the earth, leaving it
prolific in thorns and briars, which is the figure of many like
things.

Hence in our short-sighted sensitiveness we often ascribe evils
to material things that are not evils, although we make them of
evil effect by using them in an evil way. They are appointed for
occasions of good, for trials of good, and for helps to good of the
everlasting order. They provoke us to the noble virtues of
modesty, temperance, patience, fortitude, and magnanimity. They
are tests to try faith ; opportunities for generous endurance and
sacrifice ; prompters to humility ; occasions given to charity to
expand her fostering love. The life is more than the body, and
the eternal is more than the earthly life ; and every material
danger that threatens the body's health or life is a sharp admoni-
tion for us to look to our spiritual life. Pain and suffering are
not only salutary admonitions of the presence of danger, but they
are sanatory of the soul, and as intermediate good is chiefly valuable
as it helps us to our final good, much that the world calls evil is con-
vertible into intermediate good. That cannot be accounted an evil
which warns us, where warning is most precious ; nor that which
undeceives us, where deception is the great evil ; nor that which
makes earth repulsive and heaven attractive ; nor that which
does us the good office of humbling us ; nor that which puts us
in the way of better things ; whatever may be the pains, losses, or
sorrows that are instrumental in doing us so much good. The
good things of this life are so far good as they help us towards
eternal good, which they more frequently do by the willing
privation than by the abundant possession of them.

Enlightened by these principles, we are better prepared to
understand what that is which deserves the name of evil. Evil
comes of the weakness of the creature. This weakness comes of

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 179

its limitations and liability to change, whilst the liability to
change is a consequence of this weakness. Man, his properties
and powers, are in their nature limited and changeable. A
creature made from nothing has the tendency from its origin of
inclining to nothingness. The continuance of God's creative
might, " upholding all things by the word of His power," alone
prevents the creature from returning to that nothing from which
it came. But within the soul is the free will, the most movable,
changeable, and independent of all created activities, prone to take
its own way, drawing the other human powers after it, and but too
often taking the downward course below that which is good for
human nature. For man, like every other creature, is placed
between God and the nothingness from which he came; far
beneath God on the one side, he borders on nothingness on
the other; so that if God has not united him as yet to His
own divine stability, he is still on the verge, at his weak side, of
that nothingness, and liable to fall by his own acts, although
upheld as to his existence by the creative hand of God.

Another cause of change in the human soul is her union and
intimate relations with a body subject to so many kinds of sensua-
lity, and open to so many provocations both external and internal,
that attract the will from the superior good of the soul to the
inferior things of the body. Another thing that tries the weakness
of the soul and exposes her to failure, is the very greatness of her
capacity as compared with what she already is in substance or
possession. Her chief good is still in great measure external to her,
and not within her. Having the appetite for good, and a great
capacity for good that is not yet filled, and being always in search
of substantial good, when the soul lets her intelligence be blinded
by her senses and imagination, she often mistakes the baser things
than press upon her for those substantial things for which she was
made, and which alone can satisfy her spirit and complete her
life. Then the will, in its weakness, descends to things unworthy
of its dignity, commits evil, and suffers the pains of evil.

The divine truth reveals to us the good of which we are in search,
but is not the substance of that good. The light of the law by
which that good is reached is also in the soul, but she is not
herself that law. Unless, then, the soul has the foretaste of that
Supreme Good in the gift of divine charity, she easily changes her
will and inclines herself from spiritual to sensual things, which

i8o ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

have an ally within the weak man in the concupiscence that burns
in his earthly frame. The power of divine grace is the true
strength of the will, and the counteracting force against the
alluring flame of concupiscence ; but if the man refuses that grace,
or his will refuses to enter into it, and to work with its power,
whereby he might conquer all things ; if he will neither be faithful
nor humble with the divine help : he is himself conquered by
his own weakness, and inclines his infirm will to his own perversion.
This slackness of will, failing from its proper good, and inclining
itself to base and unworthy things, is a descending towards
nothingness. Here we touch upon the one and only cause of evil.
We use the word evil in three senses, each of which is distinct
and separate from the other, and it is all-important that we keep
them distinct and separate in our mind. We speak of natural
evil ; of moral evil, or sin ; and of penal evil, or punishment.
Natural evil is nothing but the absence or privation in the
individual of some good that belongs to the species. Moral evil,
or sin, is the privation or defect of rectitude in the will of an
intelligent creature. The evil of punishment is the privation of
good because of moral evil, or sin. The first kind of evil is
nothing but a defect of nature. Sin is a defect or falling off from
the will of God. Punishment is a loss of good that is due to the
evil will. Of all these evils, in so far as they are evils, the human
will is the first cause.

There is no substance of evil, no nature of evil, no positive
cause of evil. Evil is always a failure, and the cause of evil is
always a failure. Whatever is, is good, but good only in its own
kind, its own measure, and its own order. For anything, and
especially the human will, to be in its right order, it must be in
just and due relations with its greater good. Without this due
order it is in disorder, and disorder is evil. Let us give some
exemplification of this failure from due order. It has been said
that dirt, as the festering cause of disease, is only matter in its
wrong place. Leave it about a human dwelling, and it will destroy
life. Spread it over the land to fertilize the plants and fruits, and
it will support life. Good in itself, that dirt is an evil in its wrong
place, and a good in its right place. The will of man is good in
itself, and good when it adheres to justice, which is the law of
right and order ; but when the will fails from justice, and sinks
down to things that are unjust and disorderly, then the will

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. i8i

becomes evil in its failure, and the cause of evil. It loses its
purity, and becomes defiled with sin.

Evil is nothing, in fact, but the corruption of good. It is a
defect, a weakness, a falling off from good, a tending towards
nothingness. As evil is always the corrupting of some good that
God has made, it is a wasting, a vitiating, a depraving, an undoing
of good in some degree, whether less or more. What constitutes
the malignity of evil is the wilful corrupting of God's work. To
quote St. Augustine's well-known definition : " Evil is nothing
but the corruption of a species, mode, or natural order. An evil
nature is therefore a corrupted nature, for a nature that is not
corrupted is good. But even a corrupted nature is so far good as
it still remains, but it is evil as far as it is corrupted." *

Since evil is the corruption of a good nature, it follows that that
nature was good before it was corrupted, and consequently that
evil does not come from an evil principle, but out of a nature that
was created good. If sin were of nature, that nature would be
evil j but all evil works come of an evil will, as bad fruits come of
a bad tree that once was good. The evil will of the evil angel
was created good, and the evil will of the evil man was created
good. Both these evil wills become evil through their own wilful
failure from just order and right intentions. As evil originates
from the defection of good wills, it follows that all other evils are
caused by the corruption of created wills.

It remains to consider whether evil exists in something good or
in something evil. But a little reflection will show that evil
cannot exist in itself, and that it must have some good nature in
which to exist. For as evil is nothing but privation of good, and
has no substance of its own, it must be found in some substance
that is good, however that substance may be injured by the
presence of evil. Sickness is but the privation of health, but it
corrupts the body; a wound is but the privation of soundness,
but it corrupts the limb. Yet what remains of the body is good,
and sickness can only exist in a sick body, as a wound can only
exist in a wounded body. Neither sickness or wounds can exist
in themselves, but only in a body. So it is with souls : the vices,
which are the wounds and sickness of the soul, are the privation
of virtues, and cannot exist of themselves without some good of
nature remaining in which they exist. Evil always exists, then, in
* S. August., De Civitate Dei, lib. ii., c. 22.

i82 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

some nature that is good. If evil could destroy that nature, as
St, Augustine justly observes, the nature and the evil must perish
together. Evil is therefore always mixed with good ; being noth-
ing of itself but a failure and defect in soul or body, it corrupts
but does not destroy our nature.

St. Augustine justly reproached the Manicheans that, despite of
all efforts to imagine to themselves an evil being, or principle,
they were compelled to depict a being endowed with good
qualities. To their evil principle, or god, they ascribed life, mind,
memory, power, foresight, order, government, and all manner of
things in their nature good. With the same keen perception, he
remarks, in another place, that " we never find fault with anything
except for the corruption that is in it. We find fault with what
vitiates nature, because it is contrary to the nature that it vitiates ;
but in finding fault with what vitiates nature, we praise the nature
•which suffers from that vitiation." *

The distinction between the evil existing in a creature by
nature good, and the good still remaining in that nature, is
admirably drawn out in the book on the Divine Names, so long
ascribed to St. Dionysius the Areopagite, as exemplified in
the fallen angels. Even the devils, he observes, are not evil by
nature. If that were the case, they could never have had their
existence from the Sovereign Good. Nor could they exist in the
nature of things ; nor, if always and by nature evil, could they
have changed from good to bad. They are not utterly and in all
respects evil. Their essential nature has not perished ; but they
have fallen from the good order of their nature, in which they
ought to have remained. They have weakened the harmony and
good agreement of their powers into imbecility. They are evil by
what they are not, and not by what they are j and because, as the
Scripture says, " they have not kept their principality ". In what
are the devils depraved, except in having ceased to wish and to
do good things in their divinely-appointed order ? They were not,
then, always evil, nor are they by nature evil; but they have
become evil by failing from the good that is proper to angels. Nor
are they altogether devoid of good, since they have being, life,
intelligence, and certain movements of desire; but they are
depraved because they are weak as to the doing of what properly
belongs to their nature.

* S. August., De Civitate Dei, lib. ii., c. 22.

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 183

What is further weak in some fallen spirits, though not in all
of them, is a certain irrational fury, a senseless concupiscence and
a headlong fantasy. These things are not evil in their nature, but
in their excess, yet they are evil in them. When they exist in
certain animals in their due moderation, to destroy them would
be to destroy the nature of those animals. The lion without his
fierce impetuosity would cease to be a lion. The dog that fawned
on everybody would lose the good properties of a dog ; for his
natural habit is to guard the house, to admit the members of the
family, and to bark away the intruder. We compare the fallen
angels with certain animals in a figurative way, as where the
Scripture says, that "the devil like a roaring lion goeth about,
seeking whom he may devour " ; but whatever likens them to bestial
qualities is an utter depravation of the angeUc nature. In those
who have fallen 'into such utter disorder, the calmness of con-
templation has sunk into the weak fury of the passions ; the love of
the Supreme Good has changed into fiery concupiscence ; and the
hope and prospect of eternal rest in God has become darkened
and closed up by the fantastic spectres of evil projected from
their malice, mixed with evils that never end and terrors that
never cease.

But whilst the good of their nature is not utterly destroyed,
they have fallen from all that good which God gave to their
nature. Yet we do not affirm that the endowments of the
angelic nature are altogether changed; they are in them, but
they cannot see them, because the pride that falsifies them
with a fictitious view of themselves obstructs their sight, and
blinds them from seeing the good that still remains in their nature.
As far as they exist and desire any good, such as existence, life,
or intelligence, they are good ; but as far as they have deserted
the good belonging to their nature, or the good that perfects their
nature, they are evil. But they are evil in what they are not, and
in desiring evil, they desire that which is nothing.*

Unjust souls, in like manner, are not evil by nature. They are
good in what they are, and in what they have. They are evil by
their failure from justice, and by the corruption consequent on that
failure. They are depraved by falling from good affections and
from good actions; by deserting the Supreme Good for which
they were made ; and by abandoning the good order which should
* S. Dionys. Areop., De Divinis Nominibus, c. iv.

1 84 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL,

regulate, beautify, and perfect their nature, and lead them onwards
to their Supreme Good.

As we have so often used the word corruption to express both
what is evil and what comes of evil, we might as well say that we
use the word in the sense of disharmonizing, disordering, undoing,
or destroying. The word has always a negative sense implying
the privation of some good. Bnt the corruption of a nobler
nature, such as the human soul, does not make that nature
inferior to one less noble, because some elements of that nobler
nature always remain, which are superior to that less noble nature.
The soul will always be nobler than the body, even though there
be corruption in the soul that has not reached the body.
The soul that gives life to the body must always be of a better
nature than the body to which it gives life, even though evil
should have befallen the soul and not the body. Sin begins in
the will, and so in the soul, before the acts of sin reach the body
and appear in the external man. Moreover, the responsibility of sin
remains always with the soul, and yet the soul must always remain
the nobler part of man, because of her nobler nature.

As the evil within us is always a corruption of one's own nature,
or of the measure of that nature, or of the due order of that
nature ; and as this corruption has its first beginning in the laxity
or the evil choice of our will ; it is evident, as St. Augustine says,
that " if all men kept themselves up to the due measure and order
of their nature, there would be no evil. But," he adds, " if men
will use the good they have in an evil way, even then they cannot
conquer the will of God. For God knows how to dispose of the
unjust according to justice. If through their unjust will they
make an evil use of His good, in the might of His justice God
will ordain what those evils deserve. He will ordain them to
justice who have ordained themselves to sin." *

Leaving the fuller consideration of moral evil and the evil of
punishment to the two following lectures, we will devote what
remains of this to the consideration of natural evil.

Natural evil is nothing more than the limitation of that good
which belongs to the species in some member of that species. Of
every species of creature there is a perfect form, type, or standard
of excellence. This type or standard is the perfect species. It
is the divine model or ideal upon which the species was created ;
* S. August., De Natura Boni, c. xxxvi.

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 185

and when this species is fully realised in any particular example,
it is the most complete form of good in that kind. The highest
effort of human art is the attempt to reproduce in marble or on
canvas the perfect form of the species. The perfect example of
the species embraces every good in the most complete order and
harmony that belongs to that sort of creature. It is the standard of
good in that kind ; but this standard is rarely met with in the
actual creation, and is more commonly an ideal of the mind, with
which we measure the shortcomings that we find in individual
examples.

Let us take some familiar example to help our explanation.
The horse is a beautiful animal, especially in its finest models ; it
is not only beautiful in itself, but beautiful in its destination to
the use and pleasure of man. The good which it has must be
chiefly estimated by this destination. At a horse-show the judges
have an ideal in their minds of what is the best horse of its kind
in point of size, bone, shape, symmetry, health, strength, spirit,
swiftness, beauty, and docility. We may take their ideal as the
standard of the species in that kind : the horse which approaches
nearest to the standard has the greatest amount of good, and is pro-
nounced the best. The horse that fails most from that standard has
the least amount of good in him, and is therefore the worst. Yet,
notwithstanding these defects and failings from the perfection of
the species, what is in that horse is good as far as it exists. Even
where there are very marked defects, such as blindness, lameness,
deformity, or vicious temper, these are but evils in the sense of
being defects of sight, soundness, form, or temper. But whatever
remains of these qualities is good, and what fails is defect of
goodness.

There are two great causes for the limitations that are found in
every species of creature as compared with their perfect forms or
standards of excellence. The first is to be found in that great law
of wisdom by which God diversifies His works. The number of
individuals in a species is countless. But if all were exact copies
of the perfect form and type of the species, there would be nothing
to individualize them, nothing to distinguish them from each other.
Each would be an exact presentment in all respects of the other,
so that we should never know which was which. In place of the
rich diversity of creation which gives a difference to every in-
dividual, there would be a ridiculous monotony and sameness in

1 86 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

all the members of the species, destructive of the very notion of
individuality. But the Divine Artist does not repeat Himself: He
varies His work without end, supplying in variety what is wanting
in infinitude. He not only diversifies the orders, kinds, and species
of His creation, but the individuals within the species, soul
differing from soul, body from body, and face from face, in count-
less changes upon the same specific form. But this endless diver-
sity of individual creations can only arise from the greater or less
degree of good that is given to each, as compared with the perfect
type or standard of the species. Thus, where any quality is
possessed by one in a less degree than by another, where one
has less intelligence, less vigour, or less beauty, we have the
beginning of what is called natural evil, which, in fact, is but a
certain limitation of good.

But the great cause of natural evil is the fall of man, and the
vast amount of natural evil that appears in the world has been
either the direct Or the indirect consequence of that fall, the
memory of which is so deeply imprinted on the mind of the whole
human race, if we except the godless philosophers, who have effaced
it from their minds by hard and unfruitful labour. This vast
amount of natural evil, that is to say, of defective good in the
world, bears upon it the character both of punishment and mercy.
As everything in this world was made for man, and as man him-
self is the object and end of all that is in the world, we must
expect, in the order of that divine providence which guides all
things to their use and destiny, that when man underwent so great
a change for the worse, all things destined for his use or pleasure
would undergo a change adapted to his altered position. Not to
expect such a change would argue a very poor notion of that
eternal providence of God, which, in its free and constant action
in the world, adapts all things both little and great to those final
ends for which they were created. The fall was the great crisis of
the world as well as of the human race, a crisis incomparably
greater than that which brought about the deluge. The earth was
changed that man might have to toil in the sweat of his brow, and
that the toil might be the medicine of his life as well as of his
mortal body. Man lost his immortal life, and all creatures
suffered a weakening of their good.

Even since the fall, there has been so much wilful deviation in
human nature from order and rectitude, and for so long a time,

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL, 187

that in a thousand ways men have been unfaithful to themselves
through their unfaithfulness to God. They have weakened their
natures by the conduct of their wills, by the abuse of their minds,
by the corrupting of their senses, and by the immoderate excess
of their impulses and appetites. From all this there has come a
prodigious amount of disorder, that is, of the defect of that good
which properly belongs to human nature. By continuance and
contact this disorder increases with endless complication and
entanglement. What a number of disorders affecting health and
life spring from that crowded and harassing civilization, that
artificial and complicated life, in which the few are exalted and
the multitude degraded. What a variety of deformities and corporal
defects take their rise from the conditions of certain kinds of labour.
Yet this state of things is the work of human wills.

Then the poverties and defects of human bodies descend to
their offspring, and we have only to watch the transmission of
corporal defects and disorders from parents to children, from
generation to generation, often originally contracted from moral
causes, to find confirmation of the transmission of original evil
from Adam to his race. And though parents but transmit their
corporal limitations, defects and dispositions, in one way or
another, yet as the body is the prison of the soul, and the instru-
ment she must use in her thoughts, feelings, and actions, the soul
herself suffers contraction and limitation in the exercise of her
powers, through her intimate connection with the body, and
because the soul acts not in this life without the tie of corporal
influences. The corporal weaknesses and disorders which their
own folly and excess have contracted is one of the most fearful
responsibilities of parents. So obvious are these and many
similar things to reflecting minds, that it is easy to understand
how the great amount of natural evil has had its origin in human
wills, unfaithful to the good of their nature.

The good we have in this world is a relative good ; our absolute
good is our final end. When, therefore, we come to estimate the
final value of the good we have from this world we must take
another standard than its actual amount ; for our present good
can only be considered valuable as a means to bring us to our
final and everlasting good. But what kind and what amount
of natural good in this world will best help us to obtain our final
good, can only be perfectly known to God, who sees all things in

i88 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

all their bearings on each other, from the beginning to the end of
time. It was the'very greatness of his natural gifts that prompted
Lucifer, one of the noblest of created spirits, to take pride in him-
self and to aspire beyond himself, whereby he lost his final good
and fell into ruin. So has it fared with many of God's intelligent
creatures, who have received strong or beautiful bodies, and with
many who have received the noblest qualities of soul. Had they
been less gifted with natural good, they might have been less
sensual, less proud, less vain, less presuming. More humble, with
humbler gifts, they might have been happier in this world, and
have reached eternal happiness. Great gifts require a great grace
to guide them ; but a great grace can only consist with a great
humility, and great powers of nature and possessions of natural
good are not held and used with humility, unless there be some-
thing like heroic virtue. The possession of great natural good is
too apt to draw the affections upon their possessor ; and the con-
stant comparison with less gifted persons that is forced upon the
more gifted, swells that self-estimation, which degenerates into self-
love ; so that the love which is due to God and to eternal things
is given to self and to self-surroundings. But this is that spiritual
injustice that leads to spiritual ruin.

How many persons, on the other hand, have had reason to be
eternally grateful that their natural good was limited, and that
this kept them humble and disposed them fbr the reception and
good use of their supernatural gifts. Abiding in their simplicity,
they have been more drawn to God and less to themselves, thanks
to those very limitations which the divine providence ordained for
them, and so they have ascended to the possession of the ever-
lasting good.

A deformed and sickly body may be taken as an example of
natural evil ; yet, as if in compensation, it often lends itself to an
acute and sensible mind. Novalis maintained, with some truth,
that the mind seldom gets its full power in a strong and vigorous
body. Human life is full of these compensations. A deformed
and sickly body is, nevertheless, a serious limitation of natural
good, but such hmitations often become the occasion of a detach-
ment from the good of this life, that brings the soul to seek
superior good of the highest order. Each one has a given
amount of spiritual power, which is commonly expended out of
all just proportion upon the body to the detriment of the soul ;

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 189

but when the body is less attractive and less flattering in promise,
when it becomes an affliction rather than a solace, the man who
is loyal to his superior part will more easily detach his soul from
his body, and fix his affections on the better things. Loosening
his spirit firom his frail mortality, which gives him less food for
vanity, he can more readily attach himself to eternity, and make his
natural poverty the means of enriching himself with spiritual good.
He may thus exchange his natural deformity for a spiritual beauty,
and his sickness for a health and fulness of life, that shall last for
ever, and be the more enjoyed for the suffering from which he has
emerged. It does not follow, however, that a greater natural good
is not better in itself, and better even relatively, if rightly used
and wisely directed to the final good. But all good in this world
is relative to our final good, and God alone knows who will be
saved with a greater amount of natural good, and who will only
be saved with a less amount of that relative good.

With respect to the goods of fortune, nothing can be more
certain than that many are better and happier without them than
they would be with them ; and that many are saved without them
who would not be saved with them. Attachment to them, or the
restless desire of them, is a great weakening of the soul ; detach-
ment from them is the test and proof of spiritual strength.
He but little knows those goods, but little knows the dignity of
his own soul, and has no great strength of faith, who does not
understand that the gifts of fortune are more given to be denied
and sacrificed for the growth of the soul in generosity than given
to be appropriated to personal use and self-aggrandisement. For
we are called to be the co-operators of God's providence, and the
imitators of His divine bounty, in distributing that good which He
accumulates in the hands of some for the benefit of many. Yet
they become the perilous occasion of dangerous temptations, not
only to pride and selfishness, which are the roots of all evil, but
to every vice to which they lend the means. There is but one
principle of conduct that can make them safe, and that is to act
as the stewards of God in using them as though we used them
not. Privation, therefore, of earthly goods is so far from being an
evil with respect to man's final good, that by the divine disposition
it is often the certain means of securing that final good.

But with regard to the limitation of natural good, although some
receive less and some more, those who have received less have

190 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

received no evil or wrong. They have received nothing but
what is good, and have no right by any title to more than they
have received. Putting aside every envy and complaint as
injurious to ourselves as well as to justice, each one of us may
say with the Prophet Isaias : "And now, O Lord, Thou art our
Father, and we are clay : Thou art our Maker, and we all are the
work of Thy hands". Or, with St. Paul, we may ask ourselves
the question : " O man, who art thou that repliest against God ?
Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it. Why hast thou
made me thus? Or, hath not the potter power over the clay, of
the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto
dishonour ? "

We have seen far into the providence of God when we come
to understand how many who abound in natural good make it
the cause of losing their Supreme Good, and how many who
are poor in natural good make it the cause of seeking their
Eternal Good. Yet when great natures devote themselves to
cultivate their gifts and powers in the direction of the Supreme
Good, it is wonderful how much they accomplish, both for the
honour of God and the good of mankind. Still, the great number
who are highly gifted waste themselves in vain, either in mental
pursuits that begin and end in this world, or in an ambition that
looks not to God as its end, or in pleasures that expend the body
and degrade the soul.

Secure in the divine profundity of his sense, St. Paul has ventured
upon a bold audacity of speech. He calls that divine conduct
which exalts the weak and poor of this world to the Eternal Good
the " weakness " and the " foolishness " of God. The Apostle
would give a shock to our fastidious pride, and would open our
eyes with his irony to see the utter disproportion of natural good
to that universal good to which men are called, and to which
humility and poverty help us to aspire. To the weak pride of
foolish mortals, this disproportion between man's natural good
and God's divine good is unintelligible. They secretly imagine
that what is great in their eyes is great in the eyes of God,
although God judges the value of men, not by their natural
gifts, but by their inward motives. "For," says the Apostle,
" the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of
God is Stronger than men. For see the vocation, brethren, in
which you are called, that there are not many wise according to

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 191

the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble : but the foolish
things of the world hath God chosen, that He may confound the
wise : and the weak things of the world, and the things that are
contemptible, and the things that are not, that He might bring
to nought the things that are : that no flesh should glory in His
sight." Briefly, the Almighty shows by his choice of souls that
the wisdom, power, and wealth of this world are as nothing in His
sight ; that He lifts up the humble and puts down the proud ;
that He keeps those to their divine destiny who are subject to
Him and resist not His will ; whilst the self-sufficient, who will not
enter into His ways, must needs be left to their downward course
among the shallows of created things that verge on nothingness.

We cannot better conclude this lecture than with one of those
large views of the ways of God to man which the saints have
seen in their ecstatic contemplations. Hearken, then, to what
St. Catherine of Sienna learnt of the providence of God in con-
tracting the limits of our natural good. God speaks to her soul
in light, and, like the prophets, St. Catherine puts that light into
human terms. To adapt the instruction to this lecture, I shall
translate her words from the first person to the third : —

" Behold, in His providence God has fitted the second world
to the changed condition of man ! No sooner has he fallen from
his first condition, than the world produced the thorns of many
tribulations, and in everything he found rebellion. This did not
come to pass without a providential intention for our good.
With a great providence directed to our service, God changed
the world from a place of pleasure, that its ever-returning
troubles might take off" man's trust from the world, might repel
his heart and affections from it, and cause him to rise to better
things, and to hasten to the God who is the true end of his
desires. So ignorant is man, and so prone to cast his affections
down into the world, that notwithstanding all the thorns and
toils that meet him there, he seems unwilling to rise above the
world, and to care for his true country. What, then, would have
been his case, had he found a world of perfect delight and rest,
free from pain and sorrow ? But God has ordained it in His
providence, that this world should be a scene of many tribula-
tions, both to exercise the virtues of men, and to secure them
the reward of whatever pains they endure, and of whatever
violence they do themselves.

192 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

" The wealth of God is infinite. He made all things, and nothing
exists without Him. If we desire beauty, He is beauty. If we
desire good, He is goodness, and the Good Supreme. He is wisdom,
He is the benignant, the just, the merciful God. He is large in
bounty, and never avaricious. He gives to them who ask, opens
His truth to them who seek, and answers them who call upon Him.
He is not ungrateful, but quick to reward them who labour for
the praise and glory of His Name. He is full of delight, and
He holds those in His delight who are clothed with His will.
He is Himself that good providence which never fails His
servants that rely on Him for their wants of soul and body.

" When one sees how God fosters the poor worm in the dry wood ;
how He feeds the birds of the air, the beasts of the field, and
the fishes in the sea ; how He makes His sun to shine on the
plants, and gives the dew to fatten the earth ; can we doubt that
He will cherish the creature that He made to His own image
and likeness ? Let that creature know that God in His goodness
made all those things for his service. Turn himself where he
will, to spiritual or to temporal things, and man will find nothing
that comes not from the burning charity of God in a great, sweet,
and perfect providence. But because his light is dimmed, he
neither sees nor cares to see ; he is scandalized, shuts up
his charity against his neighbour, and avariciously thinks of
to-morrow. Yet the Very Truth forbade us to do this, and said :
' Take not thought for to-morrow ; sufficient for the day is the
evil thereof. He taught us to seek the kingdom of God and
His justice, which is a good and holy life ; but as to these least
of things, our Heavenly Father knoweth that we have need of
them, and He made them for us, and commanded the earth to
bring us its fruits.

" But the miserable man who narrows his heart into mistrust of
God, and withholds his charity from his neighbour, has never
truly read this doctrine of the Eternal Truth, because he does
not follow it. He grows intolerable to himself, for all evil comes
upon us from trusting to one's self, and not in God. Men like these
presume to judge what God alone can judge ; they do not know
the will of God, because they judge nothing to be good except
the propensities, delights, and gratifications of this world. Their
hope and their affections are set upon them, and when they fail,
these men think that they have none of the good providence of

ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL. 193

God over them, but are stripped of all that is good. Blinded
with their passion for natural and external good, they know
nothing of the wealth of the soul, nor of the profit of patience :
their temporal loss is death to them, so that even in this life
they have a foretaste of hell. Yet God provides for the sinners
as for the just, and makes His sun to shine and His rain to fall
upon their field, sometimes even more than on the possession
of the just man.

" In His goodness God does this, that he may be more bountiful
in spiritual wealth to the soul of the just man, and especially
to him who despoils himself of temporal things, who surrenders
the world and its pleasures, and gives up his will to God. Such as
these forget the care of themselves, and become rich and great in
the heights of divine charity. God Himself then becomes their
provider and governor both spiritually and temporally, and beyond
His general providence He puts forth a special providence on
their behalf, and the Holy Spirit serves them with a loving con-
descension. Look, for example, at that holy solitary of whom we
read in the Lives of the Saints, who had left all things for the
sake of God. In his helpless infirmity God sent an angel to provide
for his needs, who both relieved his corporal wants, and refreshed
his soul with the sweet delight of heavenly conversation. Like a
mother feeding her child from her breast, did the Holy Spirit nourish
him with the good of divine charity. He was delivered from the
bondage of self-love, and set free as though he were made a lord.
The Holy Spirit became his providence, clothing, feeding, and
inebriating him with spiritual delight. After giving up all things,
he found all things ; after despoiling himself of perishable goods,
he was invested with eternal goods. He became the servant of
all humility, and that made him the master of the world ^nd of
his sensual nature. With his mind turned from the world he
entered into the perfect light; and after despairing of good in
himself, he was crowned with living faith, and tasted of that
eternal life in perfect hope that knows no pain or bitterness. As
he judged all things by the will of God, he judged them well : and
he knew in the light of faith that God willed nothing whatever for
him but sanctification, which gave him all the strength of patience.

" Oh, how blessed is that soul that in a mortal body partakes im-
mortal good ! A soul like this holds everything in reverence, on
the left side as well as on the right ; whether it bring tribulation

13

194 ON EVIL AND THE ORIGIN OF EVIL.

or consolation; whether it bring hunger and cold or food and
comfort ; whether it bring honour or dishonour ; whether it bring
affliction or refreshment of soul. As a soul like this is founded
on the living rock, she stands firm and solid in all that occurs,
knowing by faith, and assured by hope, that God provides what-
ever we stand in need of with an equal regard to our salvation.
Where there is a great strain of toil or suffering, He gives propor-
tionate strength to endure. He lays no heavier weight upon us
than our will is able to carry with love for His sake. He has
made it known in His own blood that He wills not the death of
the sinner, but that he may be converted and live. But whilst
the whole providence of God is directed to the service of the souls
and bodies of His rational creatures, His providence over the
body aims at the good of the soul, that she may grow in the light
of faith, and may rise higher in the hope of God, and may give up
her trust in herself, and may know and see that God is all things
to us, who both can and will help us in whatever is helpful to
our salvation." *

* S. Catherine of Sienna, Delia Divma Providenza, c, xiv.

LECTURE VIII.

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

" If thou do well, shalt thou not receive ? But if ill, shall not sin be
forthwith at the door ? " — Genesis iv. 7.

THE fatherly remonstrance addressed by the Almighty to the
firstborn child of Adam, whilst he was yet brooding in his
wounded pride, and in the angry swelling of his soul against
his unoffending brother, shows that to sin or not to sin is in the
power of the human will. How can God be the cause of that
evil which He forbids, rebukes, and punishes ? In the kingdom
of man the will is the sovereign power ; God created that power,
but He created it to act freely from itself, and to be a principle
of causation. In creating the will of each rational creature,
He gave to that will the free prerogative of originating its own
acts, and left it free in the choice of actions, free to act or not
to act, free to act in one direction or its opposite, without any
compulsion or coercion from any external cause. Having once
given to His created image the noble gift of freedom, He neither
recalls, nor violates, nor destroys that freedom. But He presents
His truth to enlighten the will, and His law to guide it to
the way of justice, and His grace to strengthen its power,
and to enable it to ascend to the divine good for which it was
created.

Evil is opposed to good, as non-existence is opposed to exist-
ence. To understand moral evil, therefore, we must first
understand moral good. Real good is substantial good; moral
good is the rule of conduct that leads us to substantial good.
It is that conduct of the soul which disposes and prepares us
for the reception of our real good. *' If thou do well, shalt thou

196 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

not receive ? " But moral evil disorders the soul, and unfits her
for her real good. " But if ill, shall not sin be forthwith at the
door ? "

Man is a moral being because he is intelligent and free, and
because he is made for a good that is greater than himself He
is a moral being because he is made for the Supreme Good, and
has a multiplicity of faculties and powers that have to be har-
monized and regulated with respect to that good. He is a moral
being because he is subject to the order, law, and rule of that
good, made known to him in the light of truth. The principle
of that moral order is the universal justice that gives to God
what is due to God, to our own nature what is due to our nature,
and to every creature what is due to that creature. As St. John
Chrysostom often remarks, this universal justice embraces all
the virtues. The just man, so often spoken of in the Scriptures,
is the man who keeps all the commandments and fulfils the
whole law of God.

Moral evil, on the contrary, is the disorder of injustice, which
either diminishes or destroys the order of moral good. As
moral good, which is the rectitude of the will, prepares us to
receive our real good, moral evil, which is the disorder of
the will, is the cause of our losing our real good. Wherever
justice comes, it reconciles all things, and brings them into
harmony ; but where injustice comes, it dissolves the peace
and coricord of things. The unjust man of the Scriptures
is the man who fails from the divine law that regulates all
good.

The fountain of justice is the bosom of God. The light that
illuminates the law of justice is implanted by God in the mind
and conscience of man. The subject of justice is the free will
of man, by which it is exercised according to the light of justice
in the mind and conscience. These three points will each require
a separate consideration.

As an attribute of His divine nature, the justice of God is
high and unsearchable. It is as far in perfection above that
law of justice which is revealed for the conduct of us mortals
as the divine nature is above the most enlightened of creatures.
The justice, therefore, by which God is just is altogether different
from the justice by which man is just, even though the justice
of man is a partaking of the justice of God. Justice in God

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 197

is the absolute order of all the good that He is. If we consider
the attributes of God as they are one with the divine nature,
justice is the perfect unity, equality, and harmony between them.
If we consider the Three Divine Persons in God, justice is the
perfect equality that exists between them. As the Eternal Wisdom
is the law of Eternal Justice, and the Divine Will its active
principle, the Divine Justice is the perfect equality of the Divine
Will with the Divine Wisdom. God is justice as He is truth, and
as He is goodness, and His justice is the perfect order of His
truth and goodness. Justice, in a word, is the true and sovereign
beauty of God's infinite and eternal virtue.

When we pass from the justice which God is to the justice
that He imparts to His creatures, we must again say, that the
justice of God is not as the justice of man ; God owes nothing
to any creature, but every creature owes all things to God.
The justice of God is not therefore commutative but distributive ;
commutative justice belongs to the intelligent creature, and
consists in giving to God what is due to Him, and to every
creature what is their due — honour to whom honour, obedience
to whom obedience, love to whom love, and right to whom
right is owing. But the distributive justice of God is, first, what
He owes to Himself, and to His eternal plans, which He
completes with a generous bounty ; then it is the just proportion
that is due, according to His promise, to good and evil, dealing
with the good according to its merits, and with the evil according
to its deservings.

When Consentius put the question to St. Augustine : How
can God be the self-subsisting justice, since justice lives in us,
and is that by which we live? the great Doctor replied, in
substance, as follows : The life by which all spirits live must be
self-subsistent ; for even souls that are dead from the loss of
justice have yet a life that endures for ever, although the true
life of the soul, the life of her life, is justice. But if souls cannot
live except with a life of their own, upon which the body also
lives, how much more must that true justice have a self-
subsisting life, from which all souls live, and so live that they
who are deprived of that life are accounted to be dead, even
though they still have a certain kind of life. But that self-
subsisting life is certainly God, whose life is unsearchable. And
that life of God, which is self-subsisting, is made life to us when

198 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

we partake of it; so also is that self-subsisting justice made justice
to us when, through adhering to that justice, we live justly, and
become more or less just, as we cleave more or less to that
justice. But it is obvious that the Supreme Good is that true
and supreme justice ; and that when, in this our pilgrimage, we
hunger and thirst after justice we obtain that justice ; and in
the eternal life we shall be satiated with that justice. Let us
not imagine that God is like our justice, but rather reflect that the
more just we are, the more we are like to God by partaking of
His justice.*

The Psalmist sings that God worketh justice, and that His
right hand is full of justice ; this is the justice that God renders
to Himself, in completing and perfecting his works according
to His plans. St. Thomas says that the justice of God is truth,
because whatever He ordains He fulfils. Take this justice away
and the world would perish, for all things subsist from the order
that is in them; God wills that order, and the order that He
wills is His justice ; He wills to complete His works according
to His eternal plan : this He owes to no creature, but it is His
justice to the truth of His own eternal plan. When an artist forms
a great design in his own mind, and then leaves its lines
incomplete and its colouring defective, it is not to his work
but to himself that he is unjust. God has poured such a
wonderful affluence upon His works that He may do justice
to His own eternal designs. When the Psalmist compares the
eternal justice to the mountains of God, and to a deep abyss,
he adds, by way of exemplifying that justice : "■ Thou preservest
both man and beast ". Not because this justice is due to them,
but because it is due to His own eternal plan.

In commenting on the words of the Psalm : " Thy praise is
unto the ends of the earth, Thy right hand is full of justice,"
St. Chrysostom thus enlarges upon this order of divine justice :
" Thy praise worketh such great, resplendent, high, wonderful,
and glorious things. For it is not in a measured way that Thou
carest for them whom Thou dost benefit, nor dost Thou look
to their deservings, but all is for the sake of Thine own magnifi-
cence. . . . What is of God's nature is one with His substance,
and what is that ? The Psalmist tells us : ' Thy right hand is
full of justice ' ; showing that what God does for the benefit of

• S. August., Epiit. cxx. ad Consentium.

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 199

His creatures is not due to their merits, but to His own sub-
stance; for His substance delights in justice, and rejoices in
benignity and clemency. This is His work, this is His way,
from which He draws so many benefits. As it is the nature of
fire to warm, and of the sun to shine, so is it the nature of God
to do good, and to do incomparably more good than we can
understand ; and therefore it is said : ' Thy right hand is full
of justice,' to express the affluence of good that flows from His
substance." *

The distributive justice of God gives gifts to His creatures in the
order and proportion which accords with His free bounty and
generous mercy. This has been admirably explained in the Book
on the Divine Names. "God's justice is exalted," says that
luminous writer, " because He distributes to all things what is
suitable to the character of each, and imparts to each its becoming
measure, beauty, order, and proportion. He determines the kinds
of things with their due distributions, according to the most just
bounds and limits that are proper to each of them ; and He is the
Author to all of the action proper to each of them, for the Divine
Justice regulates all things, keeping them from being mingled and
confounded with one another, and giving to all what is befitting
to each." f

God learns nothing from His creatures ; He knows them all in
their nature and qualities in the Divine Word of His wisdom
before He produces them. He beholds all the diversities of
things in their original plans, as they exist before Him, in their
eternal forms or ideas. He beholds their various degrees of good
and perfection, and the relations and dependencies in which they
stand towards Himself, and towards each other, as He has ordained
them, and as in the nature of things they ought to be. These just
and due relations of things with God and with each other constitute
their essential order. And this essential order of things is what
we call their eternal law, and their unchangeable rule, and what,
in the nature of things, is right and just. And the light which
shines from this essential order into our minds, making known to
us the just and due relations of things toward God, and towards
each other, is what we call right reason, and unchangeable ever-
lasting truth, and the justice of things.

* S. J. Chrysost., Expos, in Psalm xlvii.
+ S. Dionys. Areop., De Divinis Nominibus, c. viii.

200 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

According to that eternal law God loves Himself with a necessary
love as He is the Supreme Good in Himself, and the good of all
things ; and He loves all that He beholds in His creatures accord-
ing to the good that is in each and its nearer resemblance to Him.
When agreeing with that unchangeable rule of justice, everything is
just and in its proper place, and is treated according to its de-
servings, and receives what is proper for it. And when we con-
form our wills to this essential order and rule of justice, our will is
made just, and we value and love all things according to their
worth ; and from this essential order of the just relations of things
all spirits obtain their knowledge and love of justice.

We are made reasonable by partaking of the light of that essen-
tial order and right reason of things, which gives us the knowledge
and love of the true and just order of things, and of the rules of
conduct that spring from them. And this reason is called univer-
sal reason, or common sense, because it is common to all rational
creatures. But the foundation of this reason is that unchangeable
and everlasting truth in which God beholds the just order and the
essential relations of all things in His own eternal Mind ; and it is
only as God beholds them that what is true is true, and what is
just is just. But God beholds the whole just and true order of
things in His own eternal light, in their original forms or patterns as
they exist before Him. And of this light He has given us a certain
created participation in our reason, which is a pale and limited re-
flection or shadow of His own light, truth, and justice; and in this
light of reason we see the principles of natural truth reflected as well
as the order and law of natural justice. But the man of faith receives
the light of divine truth, given more directly to him as a super-
natural gift and grace, whereby he holds with the firm conviction
of faith, which the power of grace can alone explain, whatever
truth God has revealed above the order of nature and the natural
scope of the understanding. With that divine truth the man of
faith receives also the light of the order and law of supernatural
justice, by whose guidance the faithful will is brought into the
subjection of humility and the union of charity with God.

No one has explained this light of truth and justice, as God has
implanted it in the human soul, with more admirable clearness than
St. Augustine ; but we must use his language with studied brevity.
That true interior justice which comes not of human custom, but
is derived from the most just law of the Omnipotent God, is the

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 201

light that forms the manners of the nations according to their
times and conditions. The laws change, but justice does not
change ; only the change in the conditions of things requires that
the same unchangeable justice shall be secured by changing the
laws to suit the change of things.* It is not the voice of man that
gives us to understand the truth, but the truth itself present to our
mind ; the voice of the teacher only directs our attention to that
truth which is within us. What we really consult and what truly
teaches us, is the unchangeable virtue and wisdom of God ; yet
that truth and justice is only open to each one according to the
good or evil disposition of his will. It is no fault in the sun's
light when we fail to see what is present before our eyes ; and it
is no fault of God's truth when we fail to see the truth and justice
that are present in our mind.f

The sun shines upon the blind man as well as upon him who
has sight, yet one sees and the other does not, because although
the light is present with the blind man, he is absent from the light.
Truth and wisdom are everywhere present, for they were looked
upon by the men of past times, and are looked upon by men in every
place at this present time ; for that justice which I see myself here
at this rnoment, is the same justice that other men saw in distant
times, and which other men see at this very time in places most
distant from me. Their souls are united with the same justice
with which my soul is united. Thus the light of justice is its own
evidence, and bears its own witness to the eye of every soul that is
well-disposed. Is this light of justice present to unbelievers?
Undoubtedly it is present, but their eye is not open to receive it.
For, as the Gospel says : " The light shone in darkness, but the
darkness did not comprehend it ". %

No one will deny that what is incorruptible is better than what
is corruptible ; or that what is eternal is better than what is tem-
poral ; or that what is inviolable is better than what can be violated.
Nor will any one deny that we ought to turn our soul away from
corruption, and to seek what is incorruptible ; or that a life which
no adversity can move from its fixed and honest purpose, is better
than one that is easily broken down by temporal disadvantages. But
whoever confesses this to be the truth, must also confess that this
truth is unchangeable, and is common to all who are able to see it ;

• S. August., Confess., 1. iii., c. 7. t Id., De Magistro, c. ii., n. 38.

J Id., Tract. 34 injfoan.

202 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

and that there are lights and rules of the virtues which are true and
fixed, and present to all who look on them and reflect upon them,
and that they are present to everyone's mind and reason. But
they belong to justice and wisdom, and when we turn to them and
accept them, and refuse to let fear or suffering turn us from them,
we act justly and wisely. The more we direct our life upon
these rules of justice and lights of wisdom, the more truly and
wisely we live, nor can it be said that we are in a state of separa-
tion from justice and wisdom. They are as fixed and unchange-
able as the laws and rules of numbers, which no one thinks of
disputing, and which are equally common to all who contemplate
them. *

The Prophet says to God : " Thy law is truth ". The law of
God is truth because it represents the essential order and the
just relations of things as they are seen in God. This truth is
the law of all rational creatures, because it presents to them that
just and right order of things which is justice ; and this truth, this
justice, this law which is the rule of justice, is the regulator of the
will and of the love of every reasonable creature through its
action in the conscience. But when the love of the will is
regulated, the whole life of man is regulated ; for as Christ has
taught us, all the commandments are directed to the regulation of
our love. This is also expressed in the Canticles, where the bride
says of the bridegroom — the loving soul of the loving God : " He
hath set charity in order within me". For this charity is the
perfect order of justice, in which God is justly loved above and
before all things, with the whole mind, heart, and soul ; and all
things else are loved in God and for God, according to their
goodness, worth, dignity, and nearness to God. To love myself,
therefore, in God and for God, is the just and perfect order of
loving myself; and my neighbour cannot complain if I love him
in God and for God, because it is the most perfect love that I can
give him.

Nothing can teach me my true position ; nothing can reveal to
me the true condition of my heart ; nothing can enlarge my
moral being, and lift my will into a just, virtuous, and happy
condition, with so much effect as to meditate upon and to
penetrate into the law of justice which God has implanted in my
reason or revealed to my faith. To inspire us with the love of

* S. August., De Libera Arbitrio, 1. ii., c. lo.

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 203

that eternal justice, the Holy Spirit inspired that magnificent
Psalm which is the 11 8th in the Psalter. It is a continuous
creed alternating with continuous prayer, in which we cleave
with faith to the law of Divine Justice, and ask for light to under-
stand, and grace to perfect in ourselves the law, the will, and the
justice of God. It is not, therefore, without a profound ^reason
that this Psalm is distributed into the three daily hours of the
Church. A few sentences of it, in example, will give the burden
of the whole : " Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk
in the law of the Lord". "Give me understanding, that I may
learn Thy law." "How have I loved Thy law, O Lord; it
is my meditation all the day long.'' "Teach me goodness,
discipline, and knowledge; for I have believed Thy command-
ments."

But I shall rise to the majesty and magnificence of the law
that God has revealed to my mind, and made sensible to my
conscience ; I shall rest in security upon its immovable solidity,
when I realise to myself that this law and rule of my life is an
imparted reflection of that unchangeable order, and that sub-
stantial and eternal justice which God is. " Fashion no idols to
yourself," says St. Augustine ; " banish from your mind all
phantoms, all images and pictures of your imagination, and you
will find that God is justice." Hence the Scripture says : " Thy
justice is everlasting ; and Thy law is truth ".

The will of man is the subject of that law of justice, whose
light is in the mind, and whose guidance is offered to the will. It
is essential, therefore, both to the knowledge of self and to the
knowledge of good and evil, that we should understand precisely
what the will is.

The will, then, is the central and sovereign power of free action
in the soul, whereby the man holds the possession and disposal of
himself, and rules and directs all the faculties and powers of his
manhood. Yet though the will is sovereign over the man, and
free in the exercise of that sovereignty, it is always responsible to
God. If it be asked, Whence comes the power of the will ? we
have already stated that it comes from God who created it, and
gave it the power to act freely. But if it be asked. Whence comes
the freedom of that power, and the freedom of choosing its
motives and objects? we must answer that this freedom of use
and of choice conies from the will itself The will itself is the

204 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL E VIL.

cause both of its choosing freely and of its acting freely, and of its
refusing to act.

When we consider the human will more closely, we find in it
three elements, each of which requires a separate consideration ;
these are the appetite of the will, the power of the will, and the
movement of the will.

In the depth of the soul and essence of the will there is a
sense and an appetite that moves us to seek good and to avoid
evil. This is the fundamental sense and appetite of man, to
which, when it is in just order, every other appetite is subordinate.
It is not the appetite for low and sensual good, but a spiritual
appetite for universal good. This appetite, as Suarez observes, is
not a special but a general appetite ; it is the natural appetite for
that good for which man was ordained. This appetite comes not
of knowledge, or of choice, but of nature, and has the good of
the creature for its object. But although it comes not of know-
ledge, yet this vital appetite follows knowledge, because the
intelligent creature seeks her own good, aud employs the means
for reaching that good. But she does this in virtue of that
general sense or appetite for good which is in the root of the soul
and of the will. But this appetite confesses by its very existence
that it belongs to an imperfect being, and expresses the wants of
that being.* In a word, it is the great void in our capacity for
universal good craving to be filled.

St. Athanasius, therefore, defines the will as " the appetite of a
rational and intelligent substance for that which sweetly affects
the soul ".f And St. John of Damascus calls it " the rational and
vital appetite proceeding from nature ".{ But this appetite is dim
and undefined until it is enlightened by truth which reveals the
good of which we are in search. The more the soul possesses
of partial good, the more her appetite grows for greater good, nor
will she ever be satisfied with less than perfect good ; and the
reason is, that we are moved by appetites that seek universal
good, as the reason why we seek universal good is because we
are made for God.

How, then, are we to explain the appetite for evil ? The fact is,
that there is no appetite for evil, either in human nature or in any

* Suarez, De Anima, 1. v., c. 3, n. 7.

t S. Athanasius, De Dcfinitionibus, s. 7.

\ S. Joan Damascen, De Fide Orthodox, c. ii. De Voluntate.

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 205

other nature. Plato observed, long ago, that no man desires evil
to himself, but only good. And Seneca observed that no man sees
the evil that he is actually doing in his own soul. The wicked
man deceives himself with the pretence of good whilst he is doing
evil. The appetite for good is deluded and cheated by a com-
bination of self-love and imagination to mistake evil for good. A
baser appetite is permitted to arise and to darken the appetite of
the soul for universal good, and deludes itself with the appearance
of good, although it proves to be evil ; and the self-deluded will
accepts the cheat, and in its weakness is generally not unwilling to
be deceived, and to look at the pretence of good whilst doing evil.
But the appetite for good never accepts evil, except under the
appearance of good ; it rejects open evil as its enemy. There is
always a false motive accepted by the will when it does evil. The
reason of good, be it true or false, gives the motive to the appetite
and the loving power of the will ; and when we truly love good,
we love it both for its own sake and for our own. But when we
love evU, under the delusive appearance of good, it is to satisfy
some base appetite or passion of our own. " But we love our
Divine Creator," observes Suarez, " as the universal good of all
things, and therefore as our good ; and for this reason a soul that
is in charity loves God more than she loves herself, because our
good is included in the God we love as in its original fountain."*

But the appetite for good is rather the spring of the will than
the will itself It is one thing to have an appetite, another to set
the will in motion ; one thing to feel desire, another to act upon
that desire.

The power of the will, considered apart from its action, is its vital
force, its virtue, or capacity for action. This power is either the
natural force of the soul, which is increased by habitual exercise
and discipline, or it is the natural force exalted, increased, and
augmented by the divine gift of supernatural force, given by God
to the same soul for gaining its supernatural ends. The one is
God's gift in the order of nature, the other is God's gift in the
order of grace. The spiritual appetite for good is the chief
element of that power, and the power is increased with increase ot
appetite and desire. What is this appetite but desire ? There are
many souls, before the world contaminates them, that suffer inex-
plicable desires that are vague and undefined in their objects,
* Suarez, Ihid.

2o6 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

simply because faith has never taught them what is the true
object oiF their spiritual appetite, and what is the final end of this
immense desire.

But the power of the will is one thing, the act of willing is
another. The will as it is active is the free and uncompelled
movement of the soul, either to an object or from an object, with
a view to some end. The end proposed is the motive of the will,
and the reason why the will acts. We must consider the soul as
perfectly simple in herself, but as having her sense enlightened by
truth and by the law of justice, and as having the appetite of good
within her. The will, then, moves with affection towards the
good, or the seeming good, that the mind presents. But if the
mind presents evil, or seeming evil, the will withholds its move-
ment or moves away from it. This we call hatred, which moves
the will from evil, as love moves it towards good. But when
the hatred becomes active, it seeks to punish, weaken, or destroy
that in which the evil is, or in which the seeming evil appears
to be.

To understand the motives upon which the will acts, we must
carefully distinguish between the immediate motive and the final
motive that the will has in view. For the immediate good is justly
ruled by the final good, and the one is loved for the sake of the
other. If you deny yourself some present indulgence for the sake
of your general health, you find it good to refuse the present good
for the sake of a greater good. If you refuse the same indulgence
for the sake of temperance, your motive is the good of the soul.
If you do an act of justice, you do it for the immediate motive of
acting justly, but you may have the final motive of honouring and
imitating the justice of God. You help your suffering fellow-
creature, this is your immediate motive, but you have the final
motive of loving God in your neighbour ; and thus what would be
natural benevolence on the first motive becomes charity from its
final motive.

It is well to have a clear and compact remembrance of this,
which sensual people seem never to understand, that when two
goods are offered to our choice, the order of justice requires that
we choose the greater good and leave the less. This is the law of
self-denial. Again, when two motives present themselves for one
and the same action, the law of excellence requires that we put
our will and intention to the higher motive. For the ultimate

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 207

motive exalts and enriches all the intermediate motives with its
own value, and makes every mediate good a step towards our final
good. In dealing with intermediate good, the perfect soul,
following the light and order of justice, subjects all lower motives
to the motive of the love of God, which she contemplates as the
highest law of justice in all her acts.

But besides the light of God's truth and justice, which illuminate
the soul and give motives to the will, there are other elements to
be considered in the management of the will. The soul is invested
with a body of which she is the animating principle. She is the
subject of all the corporal senses, appetites, and passions, and
through them she holds much converse with the external, visible,
and sensible world. All these objects external to the soul, with
their movements and sensibilities, become internal to the soul
through the imagination, which, through its union with the
intellectual light of the soul, if not well controlled and regulated,
will obtain a prodigious power of exaggerating lesser good, and of
magnifying that lesser into the appearance of greater good, by
adding to it ideas from the mind that do not belong to it. The
ill-regulated imagination, stimulated by passion, confounds the
pure truth in the mind with its own representations, and makes
that to be true which is untrue, that to be just which is unjust,
and that to be good which is evil. When the imagination is well-
regulated, it is a grand and beautiful power, interpreting the
external world of sense to the mind, and through the mind to the
will ; and illustrating and giving colour and interest to the inward
truth and justice derived from the communicated light of God.
But if the will suffers the imagination to rule the intelligence,
instead of the intelligence ruling the imagination, the result will be
to delude the will, and to lead her into error and evil. It is
obvious from this explanation, that the error of the will is justly
called evilj and that the evil of the will is justly called error, for
one does not exist without the other.

The will, then, is the central and sovereign ruler of the man.
Being the active power of the soul, it is open to a vast range of
motives, from the pure and serene truth in which God reveals
the principles of truth and the order of justice, the luminous
shadows of all good ; from the sense and appetite of universal
good which is in the root and essence of the soul ; from the
imagination with its restless and flitting imagery, drawn from the

2o8 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

external world ; from the senses and passions of the body, as they
are acted upon externally and act upon us internally ; and from
the memory with all its throng of ideas, imaginations, and sensa-
tions derived from the past. Thus by a marvellous power, often
good, often dangerous, we open or close our minds to the present,
recall the past, and make the past become the present anew.

It is the sublime office of the will to rule herself well and wisely
in the midst of all these invitations, solicitations, and provoca-
tions. But the law of this good and wise ruling of the will is the
light of divine justice in the mind, worked into the understanding
by instruction and reflection, and into the conscience, where it
acts with the force of a sense, through the habit of cherishing
whatever is good and right. Guided, therefore, by the light of
justice in the mind, and the sense of justice in the conscience,
the just will adheres to God before all things, as the one Supreme
Good, as the Supreme Good of the soul, and as the Author of all
good and of all justice. The just soul feels that God is the
heart of her heart, and the mind of her mind, and that His justice
is the light of all justice. She subordinates all other good to the
Divine Good, and all other justice to the Divine Justice. She
rules her senses and keeps them in their place and subjection as
her servants, and mortifies them into the discipline of obedience.
She controls her imagination, and makes it subservient to the
light of truth ; and this is the most difficult of her labours in the
ruling of herself. For the imagination will inopportunely obtrude
where it is not wanted, eclipsing the pure light of truth ; it can
only be conquered, at times, by the patient stability of the will,
holding firmly athwart the intervening obscuration until the
cloud passes and the sun of truth reappears.

Let any one watch his will when, despite of all lower solicita-
tions, it holds steadfast to its high purpose. Tremulous with life,
it resists change by the simple act of holding to its higher motive.
As the polar needle of the ship holds to its point whilst all
around and beneath is in fluctuation, so the will holds to its
point, cleaving with its love to its object despite of all commotion
in the inferior nature. The pole is not the port to which the ship
is steering. Yet the needle, pointing to the pole, guides the ship
to the port to which she is bound. But God is both the pole and
the port of the soul, and the law of justice is the attraction upon
the needle of the will that guides the soul on her way. Watch the

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 209

same soul when she loses sight of her guiding good, and the will
no longer holds to her high motive. The ruling power of the
soul is no longer firm, but inconstant, restless, and capricious ; it
is at the mercy of the senses and the imagination ; it flits in
weakness and discontent from one inferior object to another,
because all things have lost their just value in losing their just
order, and their right relationship through that soul with their
Divine Author, whose light and law is the measure of all goodness.

There is one movement of the will that should be especially
noted, because it looks, at the first glance, like a standstill, although
it is the noblest and most energetic exercise of the will. I refer
to the just will under trial, opposition^ or provocation, whether
under temptation, the presence of unacceptable evil, or suffering.
Then the just will gathers up her strength within, attaches herself
to her highest motive, and rests for strength on God as on an
immovable rock ; from which she refuses herself to the provoca-
tion, and abides in the concentrated strength of patience and
endurance. This act is very simple, though expressed in so
many words. When our Lord sent His Apostles to encounter so
many trials, He said to them : " In your patience you shall possess
your souls". The patience that holds back consent until the
truth or justice of a question appears is a similar example of the
energy of the will in self-control. So far from reducing the will
to inaction, the concentration of the power of the will upon its
centre, and so refusing to yield to external provocation, is the
strongest exertion of the will, and the greatest proof of its freedom.
Hence patience and fortitude, which involve what we may call the
passive exercise of the will, are the virtues that make man strong
by the habit of concentrating strength. Much the same may be
said of the discipline of the tongue.

But to quote the famous words of St. Augustine cited by Pope
Agatho in the Sixth General Council : " As the soul is nature, the
movement of the soul is the movement of nature ; and as the will
is the movement of the soul, it is therefore^the movement of
nature".* To continue the great Doctor's explanation of free
will : " The will is from him whose will it is. If it be the will of
an angelj it is from that angel ; if it be the wiirof a man, it is
from that man ; if it be the will of God, it is from God. If God
works good will in man, He works it in such a manner that the

* S. Augustine, Contra yulianum, 1. v., c. 11.
14

2IO ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

will shall spring from the man whose will it is. Just as He
makes one man spring from another, for although God is the
Creator of man, it does not follow that one man is not born of
another man. Each one causes his own evil, because he wills
evil. But when we ask how man can have an evil will, the ques-
tion bears not on the cause but on the possibility of an evil will.
And the answer is, that however good the nature of a creature
may be, that nature is not unchangeable, and it is made from
nothing." *

The Book of Ecclesiasticus gives us this vivid description of
man's free will : " God made man from the beginning, and left
him in the hand of his own counsel. He added the command-
ments and precepts : If thou wilt keep the commandments and
perform acceptable fidelity for ever, they shall preserve thee. He
hath set water and fire before thee : stretch forth thy hand to which
thou wilt. Before man is life and death, good and evil; that
which he shall choose shall be given him."

How, then, are we to understand St. Paul where he says that
God " worketh in you both to will and perfect according to His
good will " ? God works the power but not the choice of the will.
Sometimes the Scriptures ascribe our will to God, sometimes to
ourselves, and sometimes to both. These statements are easily
reconcilable with free will. God gives us the light, the rule, and
the strength to choose right and act well, and we use them or
neglect them. St. Bernard explains this clearly. " If," he says,
" God works in us to think, to will, and to perfect what is good.
He does the first without us, the second with us, and the third
through us. In sending us good thoughts He prevents us; in
changing our evil will He joins our consent with His will ; in
ministering strength to our consent the Interior Worker causes
our work to be known externally. Assuredly we cannot prevent
ourselves. But he who finds no one good can save no one
unless He prevents him with His grace. Grace awakens the free
will when it sows good thoughts ; grace heals the will when it
changes the affections; grace strengthens the will to come to action;
grace preserves the will that it may not suffer defection. But
this grace works with the will in such a manner as to prevent the
will in the first instance, and to accompany the will in all the rest,
so that the will may work henceforth together with the grace.

• S. Augustine, Contra jfulianum, c. xlii.

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 211

Thus what is begun by grace alone is perfected both by grace
and free will, not working separately, not alternately, but in each
good work unitedly." *

Although we have long delayed the immediate question of
moral evil, or sin, you will have seen that each step in our path
has advanced us towards it, and has been preparing us to enter
upon it with a clearer understanding. As moral good is the just
order of the will, moral evil, or sin, is the failure of the will from
the law of moral good. It is the defection of the will from due
order, right form, or just measure, which produces disorder,
deformity, or loss of justice and right proportion. The due order
and right conduct of the will take their measure from the light of
reason and from the law of God, which represent His Eternal
Justice. Man is made for justice because he is made for God, and
justice perfects his nature and brings him to God. He has the
form of justice within him as a luminous shadow of the justice of
God, and his conscience is the interpreter of that justice; and he is
just when his will is conformed to that justice. "He who hath not
the law is a law to himself." The law of justice contains all
moral good, and it springs from God's eternal view of the just and
essential order of things. Justice, is, therefore, the will of God
commanding the will of the creature to obey that light of justice
which He has implanted in the mind of that creature, or has
spoken to him through the word of revelation and the light of
faith. God Himself, in whose hands all things are, is the authority
and the sanction of the law of justice. By obeying the light and
authority of God the will of man is in due order, and just confor-
mity, and right relationship with the will of God. But whenever
he wilfully fails from that due order, and refuses to conform his
will to the light of justice, and to measure his conduct by the
moral law, and to do the will of God, he falls into sin and so into
moral disorder. We have said that he falls into sin, which
exactly expresses his act, because it is a defection, and a descent
from what is high to what is low, from what is good to what
is evil. These defective acts of the will are not only evil
because the justice of God forbids them, but the justice
of God forbids them because they are evil ; yet the divine
forbidding of them increases their moral evil, because in sinning
against the divine command we offend with greater knowledge,
* S. Bernard, De Gratia et Libera Voluntate, c. xiv.

212 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

and with direct disobedience to the authority of our Divine
Creator.

To put this in another hght, the evil of sin consists in turning
the will from the unchangeable good, which is thfe proper good of
man, and in turning that same will to that changeable good, which
corrupts the soul and perverts the order of justice. Sin is there-
fore a sliding back and falling off from our good, and from the
true end of life. When we turn from the law of God, we turn
from God Himself and turn unlawfully to the creature, giving that
will and love to the creature which is due to God. Hence sin is
called a debt to justice, and in the Lord's Prayer it is called a
debt to God. It is a failure in what we owe to justice, to God,
and to ourselves. Or, as our own version of the Lord's Prayer
puts it, it is a trespass, that is to say, it is an offensive stepping
beyond the bounds of law, justice, and obedience.

St. Augustine expresses the whole subject in these terms :
" The will is a certain middle good. When the will adheres to
the universal and unchangeable good, it obtains the first and
greatest good of man. But the will sins when it turns away from
the universal and unchangeable good, and turns to its own, or to
exterior, or to inferior good. The will turns to its own good when
it wishes to be in its own power ; it turns to exterior good when
it wills to make what is another's its own, that is, when it wills to
have what it has no right to have ; and it turns to what is inferior
to itself, when the will gives itself over to the sensualities of the
body, from which the man becomes proud, curious, and lascivious.
He is taken up with a life that, in comparison with the life devoted
to superior good, is death. Yet the providence of God overrules
that life, and gives to everything its due place, and to everyone
what he deserves. Yet the things that the sinner gives to his will
are not in themselves evil, nor is the free will in itself an evil ; but
evil consists in the turning of the will from unchangeable to change-
able good, in doing which it is not compelled ; but it acts of its
own free movement, and the just and deserved punishment of
misery follows."*

This, then, is the point on which to fix our special attention,
that moral evil, or sin, consists in a falling off of the will from the
law of justice, which justice leads the will to its true and proper
good, and in the falling upon that inferior good which is unworthy

• S. Augustine, De Libera Arbitrio, 1. ii., c. ig.

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 213

and disproportioned to the dignity of our nature, and to the great-
ness of our end, and which disorders, debases, and corrupts our
soul. But this requires some further explanation. Justice requires
that we love all good, with a love proportioned to its kind, order,
place, and degree. Injustice and disorder begin, therefore, when
we put inferior good above superior good, and with absurd un-
reason cleave to it by preference. It is this absurdity of our
conduct which lays it open to the satire of men who are not
themselves just, for they can see the disproportion of things in
their mind, which their own wills disregard. This preference
given to inferior good is the beginning of all disorder, and it ends
in that perversion of the will which places the creature above the
Creator in our love. Yet that inferior good is only given us to be
used as the means of helping us to our superior good ; and when
we thus use it lawfully and with prudence, our will is in its just
order. But when we make the means the end, and thus forget
our true end, we fall into the extreme of disorder, and there is no
justice in us. For justice wills that everything should hold its
right place, due order, and proper subordination. And the just
will is the reflection of this justice.

Moral evil, therefore, as considered in itself, is nothing but a
failing and defection of the will from good. Consequently, the
Fathers have proclaimed with a unanimous voice that evil is
nothingness. But it is nothingness where there might be, and
ought to be, a great good ; and therefore as evil wilfully destroys
the good relations of the will towards the greater good, it is injustice.
It is injustice towards God, to whom we owe ourselves and all we
have : it is injustice towards the light of reason and the light of
faith to which we refuse the obedience of our will ; and it is unjust
to ourselves, making the soul unjust and unreasonable, and de-
priving her of the great good for which she is created. It is also
unjust to God's other creatures that were made to serve the justice
of God, and that we make to serve us in our sins.

It will be gathered from all that has been said, that moral evil,
which alone is destructive of souls, has its seat in the will. The
root of sin is in the evil inclination of the will ; for where evil is
concerned the proverb is true, that what you intend that you do.
Intention is the beginning of action, and complete intention is
complete action as far as the will is concerned. Hence the
completion of the intention is the completion of the sin, as it

2t4 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

decides the moral condition of the will ; even although the act is
but consummated within the soul, and has not come out externally.
The imagination then becomes the field in which the sin is
perpetrated. But when the evil disposition or malice of the will
breaks out into external acts, they exhibit the force of the evil
disposition within, and the malice of the will is apt to become
more intense both through the vehemence of the evil will thrown
into the action, and from the rebound of passion awakened by the
external act, working up the blind concupiscence of the will to
pursue its evil course with greater violence. Another consequence
of bringing the internal sin into external acts is but too often to
spread the fire of disorder beyond the sinner, working injustice
and spreading disorder elsewhere than in the soul, and injuring
other souls by scandal, example, or even violence in word or deed.
There is even a malice of the will so great that, not content with
its own disorder, it is inspired by the very pride which engenders
that disorder, and which that disorder augments in its turn, to
level other souls to its own condition, whether of disbelief or
immorality.

But, as the Scripture says : " Man sees in the face, but God in
the heart ". Man judges by the external act, and God weighs the
internal motive. The internal conscience is closed against the
inspection of the courts of human law. Malice is there presumed
and the evil intention is inferred from the outward act. But before
the eye of God and in the court of eternal justice, the whole
interior of the man is open, and the extent of his guilt is seen
clearly in his intention.

Culpability or guiltiness, as St. Thomas observes, is the effect
that follows from sin, and which obliges the guilty one to punish-
ment. Sin passes away as an act, but the effect of that act
remains, and .that effect is guiltiness.* According to human
judgment the guilt must be proved by external acts before it is
established and punishment awarded ; but, according to divine
judgment the guilt is established by the interior act, the proof of
the act is recorded in the conscience, and the punishment already
begins.

Let us consider for a moment what are the first effects of the
guilt of evil. There are two objects presented to our will which
make it good : the one is the good that is worthy to be sought, the

• S. Thorn., Tract. De Malo, ii. De Peccatis, a. 2, ad 14.

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL, 215

other is the rule by which we seek and by which we obtain that
good. This rule is moral good or the good of order, which brings
us to substantial good. But by deserting the moral good of order
and justice we lose the substantial good which alone can give us
peace and happiness. For moral good promises what substantial
good gives ; and if we love God and do His will we shall come
to His beatitude. The first effect, therefore, of the evil will, and
the greatest, is the loss of that justice which promises beatitude.

The second is the dreariness and vacancy that comes upon the
soul when she finds that she has severed herself from the light of
truth and justice, and the law of good, and has given herself up to
delusion and folly, which degrades her even in her own eyes, and
fills her with remorse. Losing her subjection to God's rule, for
we can only hold to what is above us by subjection, the soul loses
her hold of those spiritual cords, those rays of divine light and
descents of grace, by which we hold to the will of God, and falls
back upon herself to taste her own bitterness, and feel the hoUow-
ness, privation, suffering, and misery which follow the desertion of
divine good. The gnawings of hunger in the defeated appetite for
good, and the pangs inflicted by the rebuking conscience, have been
fitly called the worm of remorse, the sting of conscience, and the
iron bite of sin. Too slothful to bring up the latent power of the
will, too craven to meet the spectres of delusive temptation with
the valour of a high resolve, the will sinks from the light, and
the good of the will becomes the captive of concupiscence, and
the victim of evil under the mask of good, which only drops off
after the evil is accomplished and the pains of evil have begun.
But where a long habit of evil has brought down the vital powers
of the soul into a state of insensibility to the light of justice and
the stings of conscience, that insensibility is the numbness and
paralysis of death.

We cannot better confirm what we have said on the character
of evil than by quoting the Book on the Divine Names. "Good,"
it says, " is the principle and the object of all wills ; for even evil
things are done in the expectation of good. No one, however
evil, looks for anything but good when he does evil. This shows
that evil in itself, and by itself, has no substance ; because every
one proposes some good to himself in his evil action, which has
only a supposed and fictitious quality. When a being is attributed
to evil, it is through the mistake of ascribing one thing to another

2i6 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

that does not belong to it. The sinner imagines some good when
he contemplates evil ; the error is in his own opinion, that
confounds the good he proposes with the evil that he commits.
What he intends is one thing, and what he does is another. . . .
But evil can do nothing without a mixture of good, for what has
no part or portion of good is nothing. Evil in Satan is his want
of likeness and conformity with the Supreme Good. Evil in the
soul of man is want of conformity with reason and with grace.
Evil in the body is want of conformity with nature."*

This is the reason why moral evil is called iniquity. St. John
says : " Every one who committeth sin, committeth iniquity : and
sin is iniquity ". Iniquity is the want of equity in the will to
equalise the soul with the light and law of justice.

To sum up in the words ascribed to the Areopagite : " Evil is
privation, defect, weakness, disproportion, error. It is without
object, without beauty, without hfe; it is without intelligence,
without reason, without perfection, without any place of rest. It
hath no cause; it is indefinite, it is barren, it is empty, it is
imbecile, it is disorderly. Evil is aimless, darksome, and void of
all being whatsoever."

This profound writer then lays down the great maxim, which
has become so famous, that " good proceeds from one full and
absolute cause, but evil from many particular defects"; and he
thus explains it : " Whatever is according to nature proceeds from
a certain and definite cause ; but as evil is indefinite and has no
certain cause, it is not according to nature ; and what is not
according to nature is neither to be found in nature nor in art.
For true art finds its reason in nature. But although evil proceeds
from many causes, these are not reasons or powers, but weak-
nesses, infirmities, and defects, or they are a mixture of incon-
gruous and discordant things without measure or proportion.
Hence evils are versatile and changeable, and they never remain
the same; they are indefinite, uncertain, and indeterminable;
they hurry this way and that to divers things as indefinite and
uncertain as themselves. "t

How the will destroys justice in the soul by falling from superior
good is thus explained by St. Augustine : " Sin or iniquity is not
the appetite for natural evils, but the desertion of the better

* S. Dionys. Areop., De Divinis Nominibus, c. iv.
t Ibid., c. iv. .

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 217

things. The Scripture says that every creature of God is good.
Consequently, every tree that God planted in Paradise was good.
It was not, then, to any evil in the nature of the tree to which
man gave his appetite, when he touched the forbidden tree, but he
committed the evil act by deserting what was better. The Creator
was a far greater good than any creature He had made, and His
authority was not to be abandoned for the sake of touching what
God had forbidden him to touch, even though what Adam touched
might itself be good. But he hungered for a good in the creature
that could only be obtained by deserting his Creator, who forbade
his touching that tree. God gave the prohibition to show that the
rational soul is not in her own power, but that she ought to be
subject to God, and to keep the order of salvation through
obedience, which is lost through the evil of disobedience. For
this reason, when God forbade the tree to be touched. He called
it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because when the
man touched the tree he experienced the penalties of evil. . . .
P>il, therefore, consists in using good in an evil way. When
St. Paul rebuked the men ' who worship the creature rather than
the Creator,' and declared they were condemned in the divine
judgment, he did not rebuke the creature, for that would have
been injurious to God, but he rebuked the men who use the
creature in an evil way whilst giving up what is better."

The works of men are evil, as the great Doctor elsewhere points
out, when they are done according to self, and not according to
God. This is the radical disease, and the cause of all the evil
effects and sufferings that follow. For we repeat again, and can
never repeat too often, that we are not made for ourselves but for
God ; that we are no object to ourselves, but that God is our final
object. Our justice is not from ourselves, but from God. Our
life is not from ourselves, but from God. When, therefore, we
turn our back on God and our face to the creature as the chief
bent of our desire ; when we attempt to build up a spirit, life,
truth, good, and happiness out of the poor, weak, inconstant,
disaccordant things that are beneath the soul, and designed to be
her servants ; we fall into a degradation and a turpitude that
calumniates the whole plan of our Creator. We grow insolent
against God ; discard His light ; overturn His justice ; refuse His
love; break the golden links that bind us to His goodness; insult
His patience; and even repel His ever-waiting mercy. We set up

2i8 ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL.

our petty self in the void we make between heaven and earth, to
be honoured with the love that we owe to the God that made us,
and to be worshipped with the obscene rites of pride, vanity, and
sin, to our unspeakable unreason, dishonour, and shame ; for this
poor god of our choice is still aching with the pains of want and
misery.

The more sin the less freedom. Freedom lifts up our will
to great and high things ; sin depresses us to low and mean
things. When we reflect what self is, we nmst see at once that
a man chained to himself cannot be free. He is a captive within
the narrow crypt of his egotism, and enveloped with the darken-
ing shadows thrown off from his pride and sensuality. The
pathways to the divine truth and eternal good are far beyond
his flight ; the wings of his spirit, both the wing of faith and
the wing of love, are clogged with the mire of his ways, so that
neither his heart nor mind can ascend to the regions of truth and
justice. Fastened as with rivets to the things beneath him, his
will loses its freedom in the clay of his concupiscence, and that
concupiscence is blind, sensual, and egotistical of the body.
A man is corporally free in proportion to the space over which
he can freely move, and in which he can freely act. He is
mentally free in proportion to the breadth and elevation of the
sphere of truth in which he can think. He is morally free in
proportion to the grandeur and elevation of that justice to which
his will can conform its actions. He is spiritually free in propor-
tion to the greatness and purity of that good with which his
soul is allied. But though he has the freedom of responsibility,
he has no large or generous freedom, when with the glue of
concupiscence his will cleaves to himself, and through himself
to the base things of this lower world, first to one and then to
another, the bond slave rather than the master of what was
ordained for his service, so that his will is neither truly free nor
luminous, nor elevated, nor pure.

How is such a will to be healed and purified ? Not by the
amputation of what belongs to its nature, nor by covering over
its infirmity ; but by rectifying its injustice, and by receiving a
new justice and a new life from heaven. " Put off, according
to your former conversation, the old man who is corrupted
according to the desire of error, and be renewed in the spirit
of your mind : and put on the new man, who, according to God,

ON JUSTICE AND MORAL EVIL. 219

is created in justice, and holiness of truth." The new man, the
healer of the old, is Christ.

Let us once more hear St. Augustine, and so conclude. " Evil
is not removed by the taking away of any part of our existing
nature, nor by adding another nature to man ; but by healing
and rectifying what is vitiated and depraved in him. The will
becomes truly free when it is no longer the slave of vice or sin.
Such it was when God first gave it ; but when the true freedom
of the will is lost, God, who gave that freedom, can alone restore
it. Hence truth hath said : ' If the Son shall set you free, then
shall you be truly free '. As if He had said : If the Son shall
heal you, then shall you be truly healed. For He who sets free
is He who heals." *

* S. August,, Dc Civitate Dei, 1. xiv., c. 11.

LECTURE IX.

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

" Tribulation and anguish on every soul of man that worketh evil."
— Rom. ii. 9.

WE have seen that natural evil is nothing but the limitation
of good. We have also seen that the overwhelming
amount of natural evil has been the result of moral evil, or sin,
and that it bears upon it the character of punishment. We may
also say that the limitation of natural good which has followed
after sin is in many respects a providential and a merciful dis-
pensation, forasmuch as it has made this present life less attractive,
has put man himself under the discipline of labour, and has greatly
diminished the resources of sin, however much remains. Could
we have known man and the earth in the happy state of innocence,
and then our present state, and have been able to make the com-
parison between them, we should have wanted no proof of the
deterioration and degradation which the sin of man has brought
upon the creation. Adam alone had this woeful vision of the
changed state of things before him, during his long sojourn on
the deteriorated earth, until his bones were laid, if we believe the
Hebrew tradition, in the mound of Calvary.

As sin is a defection of the will, it is not visible to mortal eyes ;
but the results of sin are everywhere visible, both in the children
of Adam and in the inferior creation, which, as it was made for
man, through the providence that rules over both, partakes ever
of his fortunes. The tradition of the fall of man from a golden
age is so universal, that it may be almost considered as a part of
the human conscience. As penal evil is both the natural con-
sequence and the just punishment of moral evil — that is, of the sin

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 221

of created wills, we are brought to the inevitable conclusion,
which both the natural instincts and the religious sense of mankind
confirm, that, either directly or indirectly, sin is the original cause,
the ever fertile and flowing source of all the evils and calamities
by which the race of man is afflicted and made to suffer.

So long as man was innocent, the goodness and benignity of
God alone appeared. In His fatherly providence, He exercised
that affluent justice towards His own eternal plans that stand for
ever before His vision ; and He filled up by degrees His own
magnificent plan of creation. With the profusion of His gifts,
God advanced the first good of His creation to better things, and
what was lower in the creation was raised to higher states of good
to fulfil its ends. But when sin broke out from the will of man,
and this moral disorder deranged the whole order of the divine
plan until it seemed without a remedy, the retributive justice of
God burst forth from the heavens to regulate evil with punish-
ment. That Retributive Justice descends with sorrowing heart and
a breast of anguish upon the self-elated and rebellious children of
God ; the genius, as it were, of pain and privation, it descends
to admonish, to chastise, to deprive the evil will of its strength in
evil, lest that evil become gigantic and portentous \ to drive back
the evil will from evil with the miseries engendered by evil ; and
to bring back the evil will to good through the mercy that
accompanies chastisement. But if all chastisement, with all the
tender touches of mercy that come to open the heart with its
visitation, fail to soften the hardness, and subdue the swelling of
the rebel heart ; if the malice of sin is ungratefully fostered against
God to the end; then as chastisement has utterly failed to conquer
the obdurate evil, justice must change the mercy of chastisement
to that inevitable punishment which, to preserve the due order of
things, must separate unchangeable evil from unchangeable good
for everlasting.

But this is not half the account of that justice which came upon
man after his fall from God. Having lost the principle of justice
by the moral failure of his will from its supporting power ; having
lost, I say, that principle of justice which God has implanted by
grace in his nature, and by fidelity to which his nature would
have kept its order and just relationship with God as his final
end ; all chastisement must ever fail to bring even one soul to
God unless a new justice come from heaven and ordain him

222 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

towards God anew, taking the place of that justice which he lost in
Paradise. With that justice, therefore, which is due from goodness
to evil, with that justice by which the divine goodness imposes
an order upon evil suited to its evil character, there comes
forth from the divine bosom another and a superabounding justice
with the magnificence of a superabounding power, that crowns the
divine plan of human restoration with infinite mercy. In this
new order of justice, mightier and diviner than the first, God the
Son takes human nature to Himself from a pure source ; and He
by whom man was created, by whom he is illuminated, and who
is Himself the most perfect and innocent justice, shall expiate the
sins of man with an infinite satisfaction, through sufferings inflicted
upon Him by injustice and sin.

The punishment that regulates evil is in itself an order of good,
because it comes of good, and regulates evil for the sake of good.
'rtiis is exemplified in human justice, which is an imperfect
imitation of divine justice. Human justice is a good and pro-
vident regulation of evil for the sake of good through the instru-
mentality of punishment. It so far imitates the divine justice
that it always looks to an evil will as the source of the evil that
it punishes. St. Paul, therefore, says of the minister of social
justice : " He is God's minister to thee, for good : for he beareth
not the sword in vain, for he is God's minister, an avenger to
execute wrath upon him that doeth evil ". Every man owes
loyalty and good conduct to the society of which he is a member.
But if instead of doing good he does evil to society; if he troubles
its order with disorder ; if he disturbs its rights with injustice, he
owes a debt of justice to the common good, to expiate his evil
with punishment, that his disorder may be rectified by another
kind of order, imposed upon him against his will. But if the evil
he commits is a mortal offence destructive of society or its
members, and is therefore beyond a temporal remedy, the good of
society demands that he be cut off from it by exile, death, or
isolation among like criminals, apart from the good members of
society. The justice of man has therefore its two orders of
punishment like the justice of God : the one a temporal chastise-
ment in vindication of justice, directed to the amendment and
recovery of the criminal ; the other a final separation from the
good, both for the vindication of justice, and to protect the
good from incurable evil. The prerogative of mercy in the

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 223

sovereign power upon amendment is again an imitation of the
divine mercy, which restores the penitent to favour.

Every law of God commands good in forbidding evil. It holds
forth good as the reward of well-doing, and threatens evil as the
consequence of evil-doing, that the fear of evil may be the begin-
ning of good. Yet God leaves not our weak nature to struggle
with divine la\\'s, but gives divine help to reach their divine order,
and the most help to those who desire and seek it most. With
the appetite for good He has implanted the fear of evil and the
dread of punishment in the soul of man ; that whilst the love of
good may draw him to good, the fear of punishment may deter
him from evil. But the divine warnings of punishment can no
more be a delusion than the divine promises of reward. They
are no mockery. Man is free : God cannot lie. In the hand of
Divine Justice the punishment of evil is the essential counterpart
to the reward of good. It is so in the very reason of things, and
is known to all minds, and is felt by all consciences.

We are the architects of our own fortune, whether good or bad;
and when we look at the two sides of justice, what special
beatitude can be expected for the just soul, if no especial misery
awaits the unjust soul ? Let the light of Eternal Truth but shine
upon us, and even from the sufferings of sinners in this world will
it show us that no one can desert God without sinking into
misery. Let but the light from the Eternal Good shine upon us,
and it will show us how all good is in God, and that whoever
leaves God must depart into evil. But evil is itself the punish-
ment of evil. Let the light from the Divine Good but illuminate
our darkness, and we shall see that were no other evil to follow
the desertion of that good, the loss of that good alone is the
greatest of evils and bitterest of punishments. Oh ! Thou Divine
and Incomprehensible Reason : give to our reason. Thy gift, the
light to see how great is the good of a rational soul. So great is
this good, that when the soul neither enjoys God, nor holds just
relations with Him, she must be miserable. So true is this, to such
a demonstration has it reached even in this life, that we have now
whole schools of men, who, after rejecting both God and their
own souls in the name of philosophy, have proclaimed to the
world that life is nothing but hopeless bitterness and misery.
Thus fearfully have they proved by experience what the wise have
taught without experience.

224 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

When David arose from his sin, and looked back upon the
sufferings it had brought upon him, he exclaimed : " Oh ! God,
who is like to Thee ? How great troubles Thou hast shown me,
many and grievous." On which St. Augustine comments from a
like bitter experience : " Most justly ! oh, thou proud one ! Thou
art made to God's image, and wouldst be the perverse imitator of
God. Whilst deserting thy good thou wouldst have thy good still
with thee; but God tells thee: If it were well with thee after
parting with Me, it would become evident that I am not thy good.
But if God be good, the supreme good, and thy good, what canst
thou find in abandoning thy God but evil ? If God is thy
happiness, what canst thou find in leaving thy God but misery ?
Come back from thy misery to God, and say : Oh ! God, who is
like to Thee ? How great troubles Thou hast shown me, many
and grievous." *

No one can conquer the laws of the Almighty. Each man
must pay his debts to the Divine Justice. We must either do
justice or suffer justice. We must either offer to God the fruits of
the good we have received, or we must lose the good we have
neglected and abused. Nor can the least delay be tolerated
between guilt and the beginning of punishment, because the beauty
of universal justice cannot suffer disorder for a moment. The
evil of the instant is avenged on the instant, however secretly, by
privation and remorse ; whilst the open judgment is preparing,
that will bring the bitter sense of misery to the common know-
ledge of all men. As quick as the change from sleep to waking
is the passage from sin to suffering ; because the blessed state of
justice is a good so exceeding great, that no one can suffer the
loss of it without finding instant misery.f

In this present time God comes in secret and silent ways, both
to the heart of the just and the heart of the unjust man. But He
will not be always silent, not always secret. Much the greater
part of the rewards of the just are at present in secret ; and much
the greater part of the punishments of the unjust are at present in
secret. Who are the just of heart ? They who humbly, peacefully,
and submissively endure the evils of the world, and do not accuse
God because of them. Rare birds are these, but beautiful as rare,
soaring with the wings of thought above this world, and resting

• S. August., In Psalm Ixx., Serm. 2.
t Id., De Libera Arbitrio, 1. iii., c. 15.

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 225

their spirit on the world above. If they are so few, it is because
most men when they do good praise themselves, in their own
breast at least ; and when they do evil, they complain, and
complain unjustly, and this complaint is an implicit accusation of
God. But in thus winding round their self-love, and coiling a defence
round their unjust heart, they reveal the depravity within them.
For it is certainly unjust, and if unjust, depraved, to praise ourselves
for the good that God gives us ; as it is depraved to accuse God by
our complaints of the evils we have done ourselves. But when a
man uncoils from his self-love, and turns from injustice to justice,
from himself to God, he will then praise God for what is good in
him, and accuse himself for what is evil in him. And when his
own heart is right, then he will know " how good is the God of
Israel to all who are right of heart ". He cannot, however, be
right in his own heart if he thinks that unjust men are happy ; for
whoever thinks that unjust men are happy must himself be
ignorant of what it is to be happy.*

Plato speaks like a Christian where he says, that " virtue is the
beauty of the soul," but that " beauty is difficult ". St. Augustine
expresses the same thought from a higher point of view :
"Justice," he says, "is true and sovereign beauty. You will never
see that beauty where you find injustice. What is in all respects
just is in all respects beautiful." Savonarola, in his "Triumph of
the Cross," puts it in this way : If you take two persons equally
beautiful by nature, even in the judgment of wicked men, the
holiest will be the most beautiful. The first penal effect of sin
is the privation and loss of that spiritual beauty which is the
splendour resulting from the inward grace, truth, purity, and
harmony of the soul, a beauty that radiates into the features and
conduct unconsciously, and which inspires even unjust men with
a trust in that soul, and with the charm of her excellence. But
the first penalty of sin is the internal discord, trouble, and distress
that comes upon the soul, with the consciousness of deformity,
and the effort to conceal the inward change, most commonly in
vain. And how often, as with our first parents, does the pride
and shame that seek concealment of the evil, lead to excusings,
fencings, and maskings of the soul's condition, that falsifies the
spirit and destroys the habit of sincerity.

When the will of man is disordered by sin, and by destroying the

• S. August., Tract. 28 in yoan.
15

226 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

good of his nature the central principle of life is disordered, and the
force that rules life is weakened ; pain and trouble follow this
weakness and disorder as a necessary consequence. As the soul
is the vital principle of the body as well as its ruler, weakness,
disorder, and loss of vital power must necessarily follow in the
body. As the body is an organized mixture of earthly elements,
the feeblest of substances and nearest to nothingness, immortality
could never have been natural to man. It was a supernatural and
divine gift to our first parents. But by sin the divine gift was lost,
and by sin the due subjection of the body to the soul was lost.
As an effect cannot be greater than its cause, the cause of our
corporal condition is the corporal condition of those from whom
it is derived ; we therefore inherit their mortality, and with that
mortality we inherit the weakness, disorder, and lusting of the
flesh against the spirit, which are the results of rebellion against
our Creator.

Penal evil or punishment is in its nature afflictive both on
account of sin and in vindication of justice. As sin is against the
will of God, and as it is a violation of justice, the punishment of
sin in the order of justice is against the will, or at least against the
incUnation of the guilty one. As punishment follows sin, it is
either the privation of the good for which man was made, and
which he has abandoned and forfeited by his sin, or it is the
sensible pain and suffering inflicted upon his nature because of
sin. The first is the pain of loss, the second is the pain of sense.
As man is made for God, and for union with God through the
beatific vision, by deadly sin he separates himself from God, and
is deprived of the beatific vision of God, which is the final
happiness of man. This pain of loss, which is the most grievous
of all punishments, comes not by the act of God, but by the act
of man, which God in His justice permits. The pain of sense is
partly the direct consequence of the disorder that follows sin, and
partly the act of divine justice, afflicting the sinner in vindication
of eternal justice. It is the man who corrupts the action of his
will by his sin, but the pain which punishes sin corrupts the man.

We cannot better illustrate these principles, and the whole
subject of punishment, and especially the distinction between the
pain of loss and the pain of sense, than by giving a full exposition
of the case of infants who depart this world without the grace of
regeneration. And to give the exposition the greatest theological

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 227

weight, we shall follow the larger explanation which St. Thomas
has given of the question in his special treatise " On Evil ".

Pope Innocent III. says in the Decretals that "the penalty due
to original sin is the privation of the beatific vision ".* St. Thomas
lays down his fundamental principle from St. Gregory the Great,
that the mind when estranged from God cannot see the divine
light as it is, because that mind is captive under condemnation,
and in this state of captivity that light is concealed from the mind.
He then argues as follows : It is a much greater thing to obtain a
great good with external help, than only to obtain a little good
without that external help. For instance, it is a greater thing to
obtain solid and substantial health with the help of the physician
than to have but feeble health without that external help. As a
rational creature man excels all the inferior creatures in this, that
he is capable of the Supreme Good through enjoying the beatific
vision of God. But the principles of his nature are not suffi-
cient for obtaining the divine vision ; he stands in need of the
external help of divine grace. This external help is necessary to
every rational creature, to dispose and to prepare his nature, to
advance that nature towards God, and to make it well pleasing to
Him, before the rational creature can come to the perfect
beatitude. St. Paul, therefore, says : " The grace of God, life
everlasting ".

But beside that divine help which is needful for every rational
creature, whether angel or man, to make him pleasing to God and
fit for union with Him, man himself requires another supernatural
help, because of his composite nature. For man is composed of
body and soul, of a sensual as well as an intelligent nature ; and
when these are left to themselves, the body with its senses weighs
upon the mind, and hinders its free ascent to the things that are
above his nature. This help was original justice, a grace through
which the mind was subject to God, and the inferior powers as
well as the body were completely subjected to the mind, so that
the reason of man suffered no hindrance in seeking God and in
advancing towards Him, As the body is for the soul, and the
sense for the understanding, this help of original justice, which
subjected the body to the soul, and the sensitive powers to the
intelligent mind, is a certain predisposition of the man toward?
that other divine help of grace which prepares the mind to see

* Decret., 1. iii., tit. 42, cap. Majores.

228 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

God, and the soul to enjoy God. When, therefore, any one casts
that help away from him by his sin, which prepares him for his
good, he deserves to lose that very good for obtaining which he
was prepared ; and the loss of that good is his proper punishment.
The proper punishment of original sin, therefore, is the loss of
grace, and consequently the loss of the divine vision for which
man was ordained by the grace of God.

But everything that fails from its final end is an utter failure,
and is altogether in vain. And from this it follows, that if man
could not reach his beatitude, he would become an utter failure,
and God would have made him in vain. To prevent his becoming
such a failure through his birth in original sin, God prepared a
remedy from the beginning of the human race, in the Divine
Mediator between man and God, the God and man Christ Jesus,
that through faith in Him and the sacrament of faith, the obstacle
of original sin might be removed, and he might be set free from
the vanity of failure. In the 88th Psalm David asks of God :
" Remember what my substance is : for hast Thou made all the
children of men in vain ? " Upon which the Gloss observes from
St. Augustine, that David prayed for the Incarnation of the Son,
who is to take flesh from his substance to deliver men from their
vanity.

The soul of the child that dies without baptism is not, however,
deprived of the divine vision because of Adam's personal sin, but
because that child is itself infected with original sin, contracted
through the descent of its body from that first parent. And, to
use the exact words of St. Thomas, the culpability that attaches to
the soul "is derived from the flesh to the soul". For, as St. Paul
teaches : " By one man sin came into the world, and by sin
death : and so death passed upon all men in whom all have
sinned ".

If we consider the privation of the enjoyment of God as it
respects the good that is lost, it is the greatest of privations ; but
as it respects the nature of the soul herself, we must take another
measure to represent the divine justice. When we consider the
soul in herself, the severest punishment is that which deprives her
of what belongs to her nature, and is due to her nature. It is a
greater punishment to deprive a man of his natural inheritance,
for example, than to deprive him of a crown that is not due to
him. Viewed in this light, the privation of the divine vision

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 229

without any punishment that affects his own nature, is the mildest
of punishments, because the divine vision is a good that is alto-
gether above and beyond his nature ; it is not due to his nature,
and the loss of it takes nothing from his nature.*

But the pains of sense are not due as a punishment to original
sin alone. They are only due to personal sin, to sin committed
by the free will of the guilty one. As original sin is not actual
sin, as it is derived from the will of another, it is not subjected
to sensible suffering. This distinction, although not formerly
expressed, is clearly intimated in the words of Christ our Lord
to Nicodemus : "Amen, amen, I say to thee, unless a man be
born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God ". The privation of the vision of God is
here plainly pointed out as the consequence of death without
the grace of baptism. It has been acutely observed that wherever
our Divine Teacher speaks of sensible sufferings to be inflicted
on the guilty, He always makes some reference to actual or
personal sins, as where He says : " Depart, ye cursed, into ever-
lasting fire. . . . For I was hungry, and ye gave me not to eat,"
and the rest. It has also been observed that in none of the
Apostolic writings is there mention of positive sufferings inflicted
on those who have not been guilty of actual sins.f

St. Gregory Nazianzen, a man of such authority that St.
Augustine called him the mouth of the Church, in his 40th Oration,
which is expressly on Holy Baptism, distinguishes three classes of
persons who die without baptism : those who despise the sacra-
ment ; those who omit it through their own negligence ; and those
infants who die without baptism through the negligence of others.
And he thus pronounces what each will incur after death :
" I account it will be, that the first of these will suffer punishment
both for their crimes and for their contempt of baptism ; that
those who depart without baptism through no depravity of soul,
but through their negligence, will also suffer punishment, but of a
lighter kind ; but the last mentioned, that is infants, will neither
receive the heavenly glory nor endure torments from the Just
Judge ; for although they were not sealed with baptism, they
were yet without malice, and rather suffered this loss than were
the cause of it. He who deserves no punishment is not on that

* S. Thoma, De Malo, q. 5, a. i.
t Ibid., q. 5, a. 2.

230 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

account entitled to honour \ as he who is unworthy of honour is
not on that account deserving of punishment." St. Gregory of
Nyssa also says, in his Oration on Infants dying without baptism :
" The premature death of infants demonstrates that in ceasing
from this life they will neither suffer pain nor grief". Celebrated
are the words of St. Bernard in his 3rd Sermon on the Resurrec-
tion : " What doth God hate, what doth He punish biit self-will ?
Let self-will cease, and hell will not exist. Against what does
that fire rage, but against self-will ? " Although St. Augustine had
great difficulty in defining what the state of infants who depart
without baptism would be, yet he says : " Who can doubt but
that it will be the lightest of condemnations ? " * And elsewhere
he says that their penalty will be " the mildest of all ".f

SL Thomas has shown the reasonableness of this doctrine on
three distinct grounds. In the first place, it is obvious that the
penalty must be in proportion to the culpability ; as Isaias says :
" In measure against measure, when it shall be cast off, Thou *
shalt judge it". But the pain of sense is not a measure pro-
portioned or due to original sin, because it is not a sin of the
will or of the person, but a sin of nature, which ought, therefore,
to be punished with the natural penalty of privation, but not
with the personal penalty of suffering. Sensible punishment falls
upon the person because of his own passions, to which he unjustly
yields himself; but the pain of loss is a penalty upon nature
because it is deprived of grace and original justice, without which
the vision of God cannot be given, because it cannot be given
to mere nature unprepared by grace and justice to receive it.
Moreover, this law and order of punishment is proclaimed in the
Apocalypse : " Render to her, as she also hath rendered to you ;
and double unto her double according to her works. ... As
much as she hath glorified herself, and lived in delicacies, so
much torment and sorrow give ye to her." Here the pains of
sense correspond with actual sins committed wilfully, whether
spiritual sins of pride and self-glorification, or sensual sins,
expressed by living in delicacies. But infants have no responsible
will that can be the cause of sin.

In the second place, the pains of sense are not due to a mere
habitual disposition or inclination of nature. Neither God nor

• S. August., Contra yulianum, 1. v., c. 11.

f Encheiridion, c. 93. See Billuart, Dissert. 7, De Effectibus Peccati, a. 6.

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 231

man punish men because they are by nature inclined to steal,
but only because they have stolen or have had the intention of
stealing. Again, where there is an habitual defect, there must
be some loss proportioned to that defect. For example, a man
without education is not prepared for sacred orders. But the
unbaptized infant is under the defect of being without grace
or original justice, and is therefore unprepared for the vision of
God, But as the child has only the habitual disposition to con-
cupiscence in its nature, without any actual concupiscence in the
will, such as is found in those who have come to the age of
reason, the pains of sense are not proportioned to their state,
or due to them, if they die without the grace of regeneration, but
only the pain of loss.

In the third place, the pain of sense corresponds with the
conversion of the soul to inferior and changeable good, as the
chief object of desire, whilst the pain of loss corresponds with
the aversion of the soul from God, In actual sins of the will
there is both this aversion from God, and this conversion to the
creature in place of God, and therefore both the pain of loss and
the pain of sense are due to them. But in original sin alone
there is not this turning of the will from God to the creature, but
only a state of nature alienated from God because the soul is
destitute of original justice.*

One question yet remains to complete this inquiry. Are those
who die in no other sin than what they have inherited by nature
subject to grief and sorrow because of their loss ? Or have
they a natural happiness in their place of exile ? Here, as in
the whole of this question, we may accept the guidance of St.
Thomas.

Affliction is in justice due to the delight that is taken in sin.
But there is no such selfish delight in original sin, and consequently
no grief or sorrow is due to its presence. Then, those who die in
their infancy without the gift of faith have their minds limited
to natural knowledge after they are freed from the body; they
cannot have that supernatural knowledge which is given to faith,
so that they know not what that divine beatitude and glory is
which the saints enjoy, and which is far above the natural know-
ledge of the creature. St. Paul teaches us much when he says :
" It is written that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it

• S. Thoma, De Malo, q. 5, a. 2.

232 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

entered the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for
them that love Him. But God hath revealed them, by His
Spirit." Those, therefore, who have not the supernatural know-
ledge implanted in this life by faith, cannot grieve for the loss
of what they do not know, or desire that of which they are
ignorant. They are not without the natural knowledge belonging
to separated souls, and from that the soul knows that she was
created for beatitude, and that this beatitude consists in reaching
the perfect good ; but what that beatitude is, or in what that good
consists, is a knowledge beyond nature, and only revealed to
faith. As the souls of these children are deprived of the good of
faith, their knowledge of the supreme and final good is vague
and general. They have not the specific light and special know-
ledge that can cause them to grieve at their loss. As those who
are born to a low estate do not grieve at not being in exalted
station ; and as the children of rude races do not grieve for the
want of civilization, but are contented with their lot in life ; so
these aliens from divine beatitude enjoy the goods of nature
without grieving for what is above their knowledge and aspirations.*

It must also be observed that those who quit this life in actual
and personal sin have reached the age of responsibility, and they
consequently had an aptitude in themselves for obtaining eternal
life, which they have neglected and abused ; but infants have no
such aptitude in themselves ; they are dependent on others for the
grace of baptism, and there is therefore no equality between the
two cases. That a child should receive the grace of eternal life
through the will of another, before it can act for itself, is a super-
abounding and exceeding grace ; and the want of such a grace
cannot grieve those who are not themselves capable of seeking
such a gift. Even so do the great saints receive wonderful gifts
that ordinary Christians do not know, and for the want of which
they do not grieve.t

St. Thomas therefore concludes, that " although children dying
without baptism are separated from God, and are deprived of
union with Him through His glorious vision, they are not utterly
separated from Him as partakers of natural good ; and they may
thus enjoy as from God a natural knowledge and a natural
happiness ". J

* S. Thoma, De Malo, q. 5, a. 3. f Id., 2, Sentent., d. 33, a. 2.
+ De Malo, q. 5, a. 3.

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 233

We have dwelt upon this abstruse but most interesting question
at some length, not only for the sake of the instruction it conveys,
but for the sake of the light which the principles here brought
together gives to the whole question of penal evil. Let us now
turn our consideration to the punishment of that actual sin for
which the will of man is responsible.

St. Augustine justly observes, that " if all men kept themselves
to the just measure and order of their nature, there would be no
evil. But if men will use the good they have in an evil way, even
then they can never conquer the will of God. For God knows
how to dispose of the unjust in the order of justice. If, through
their unjust will, men will make an evil use of His good, in the
might of His justice God will ordain for them what their evil
deserves. He will ordain those to justice who have ordained
themselves to sin." * Again, he says : " To the most excellent of
creatures, to rational souls, God has granted that they cannot be
corrupted against their wills ; they cannot be corrupted so long as
they keep their obedience to the Lord their God, and adhere to
His unchangeable beauty. But if they will not keep their
obedience, they are corrupted by their own will in their sins ; and
against their own will they will be corrupted in their punishment.
For God is so great a good, that no one who abandons Him
can be in a good state. And the rational soul is so great a good,
that she cannot be happy with anything less than God. This is
the reason why sinners are ordained to punishment. As this ordi-
nance is at disagreement with their nature, it is punishment ; but
as it accords with their guilt, it is justice."t

The justice of God is inseparable from His goodness. For, as
we have already shown. His justice is the perfect order of His
perfect goodness. God is not as man, that He should suffer
division. His divine attributes enter into each other, and are on.e
in their operation. It is most important to keep this in view, lest
by thinking in a weak, human way, we should set up the goodness
of God against His justice, as if the one annihilated the other,
although the justice of God is the very order that perfects His
goodness. In these days of little faith, small reason, and great
sensuality, this weak way of getting rid of the divine justice is not
only frequent among men, but they even flatter themselves with

* S. August., De Natura Boni, c. 36. t Ibid., c. 7.

234 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

the notion that it proves their own goodness of heart. Against
this weakness we shall adduce the solid argument of TertuUian,
with some expansion, nevertheless, of his severe brevity, for the
sake of its easier comprehension.

From God alone, he says, can we learn how He is infinitely
good, and how in virtue of that goodness He is infinitely just. He
is infinitely good in all that is His own, and infinitely just with
respect to all that is ours. If man had never sinned, in virtue of
his innocent nature he would have only known God as He is
infinitely good. But having lost his innocence, from the necessity
of the case he must suffer from the justice of God. Yet God is
equally good in being just. He exhibits the same justice, the
same order of good, which is always one and the same, though in
a twofold way, in helping the good and in punishing the wicked.
In both these exercises of justice He consults nothing but good,
for in the one case He is the rewarder of good, and in the other
He is the vindicator of good.

Good by nature, and good to man from the beginning of his
existence, God is only severe where the conduct of the creature
calls for severity. The goodness of God is inborn in Him from
eternity ; His severity is but the accidental justice that is called
forth to regulate the evil of which His creature is the only cause.
What belongs to God's nature is the justice of good ; but what is
applied to the wilful error of the creature is the good of justice.
If the nature of God be such that He cannot leave His goodness
unexercised, the evil cause cannot escape His justice. As He is
the unchangeable truth, how can He dissemble the severity that is
justly due to evil ? As we must confess that evil deeds are unjust,
from the same reason and truth we are compelled to admit that
the good of justice must be greater in proportion as the evil of
injustice becomes greater.

Justice is not only good, but it is the protector and the defence
of good ; for unless goodness were regulated by justice, it would
cease to be good, and would become unjust. Yet nothing is good
that is unjust, because justness is essential to good. Every act of
justice is therefore the procuring of good, whether it be in judging
evil, or in condemning evil, or in punishing evil, for even to
condemn evil is to punish evil. When we consider how many
allurements are put forth by evil, how urgent those allurements are,
and how destructive of good, who could despise the spreading of

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 235

this evil ? who could leave it unpunished without encouraging the
destruction of good ? Although the threatenings of our Creator
strike us with fear and terror, yet they scarcely keep us from evil.
What, then, would it be were God not to threaten us with punish-
ment ? What if those threatenings were not the very truth of His
justice ? Can that justice be evil that will not suffer evil ? Can
we deny that to be good which protects all good ? Who can be
the author of good but He who is always demanding and exacting
good? Who can be a stranger to evil but He who is always
resisting evil ? Who is the adversary of evil but He who is the
assailer of evil ? Who is the assailer of evil but He who punishes
evil ? God is all-good because He acts in all things, even in the
punishment of evil, for the sake of good.*

The law of justice, which embraces all the virtues under the
dominion of charity, is therefore the true order of the right relations
between the soul and God. Justice puts the man in harmony
with the object and end of his being. Obedience to the order of
justice leads him to God. The desertion of this order is the deser-
tion of God. A grave and deliberate violation of justice in any
one point is a breach of the whole principle of order and obe-
dience, a violation of the principles of justice and charity, and
consequently it is a desertion of God. St. James has expressed
this truth in saying, that " Whosoever shall keep the whole law,
yet offend in one point, is become guilty of all ". In deserting
the law of justice and charity he sins against the light of God, and
is unfaithful to the grace of God. In deserting God he commits
treason against the divine sovereignty, contumacy against the
divine majesty, ingratitude against the divine goodness, and is an
abuser of God's prodigal gifts. He deserts God by his own free
act and choice, and if he perseveres in this desertion to the end of
his life, the power of choice is no longer left him ; he has for ever
made his choice of apostasy from the infinite and eternal good for
which he was made ; it is final, it is irrevocable. There is a gulf
between that soul and God that can never be passed over, because
the communion between that soul and God has been utterly
broken down by the soul herself.

It belongs to the essential order of eternal good, that it cannot
admit of union or admixture with the malice and disorder of evil
In the judging of the unjust soul, the will is the fact ; the acts of

* TertuUian, De Resurrectiotie Carnis, c. 14 ; and Adversus Marcion, 1. ii., c. 11.

236 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

the will are the evidence ; the light of the soul is the law ; God
and the conscience are the witnesses. Separated from the world
and self-condemned, separated from God and condemned of God,
the everlasting soul of the sinner departing in his sins can only
be consigned to the place and company where malice, darkness,
and disorder are everlasting. " Be astonished, oh, ye heavens, at
this, and ye gates thereof be very desolate, saith the Lord. For
* My people have done two evils : they have forsaken Me, the
fountain of living water, and have dug for themselves cisterns,
broken cisterns that can hold no water."

Where, then, is the mercy of God? The mercy of God is
everywhere, and is everywhere exalted above His judgments.
Even in hell there is mitigation of the full rigour of justice,
although the hour of grace is past, and conversion is no longer
possible. But who in this world can fathom the depths of the
evil of separation from God ? Who can open the gates of justice
and explore the miseries of a soul left to herself? What is it
to be a living subject vacant and void, because deprived of her
living object? The whole nature of the soul is there, with all
her appetites, powers, passions, and cravings; yet without their
objects. Thirsting for ever for a good that can never come, yet
never consumed because immortal; "longing for death, and it
cometh not," the soul is immortal in immortal pains. And the
wicked torment the wicked in their malice, as they have done
on earth, so more potently where all is despair of good.

"The mercy of God is over all the earth" — a mercy wide
working, superabounding, wonderful. In nothing is that mercy
more plentifully shown than in the chastisements sent to correct
the errors of the sinful race of man, or in the adversities raised
up to purify and strengthen the just of heart. Yet the perverse
are blind to them, and the men who fear God alone read them
aright. In His pity to His children, the wrath of God comes
from His mercy, chastising but to spare. He blinds the raging
persecutor and strikes him down, that He may enlighten him
into an apostle. Some He chastises with their own sins, that He
may bring them to repentance. For, " many are the scourges of
the sinner ". Some He beats down from the pride and tumour
of their souls with sharp and keen humiliations. For, "God
resists the proud ". Some He scourges with the creatures they
have abused, that they may return to their Creator. For, " He

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 237

chastiseth every son whom He receiveth ". God knows far better
than we do of what we stand in need, and His severer remedies
are the medicines of His charity.

It is among the richest ordinations of God's providence that
souls profusely help each other, some with intention, some without
intention, and some against intention. Hence souls obtain great
help and profit both from the good and the wicked. They are
moved to good by seeing the reward of the good, and are deterred
from evil by seeing how the wicked are punished. The punish-
ment of evil works are therefore for good as well as the rewards of
well-doing. Then the evil with their evil deeds bring the virtues of
the good into exercise in a thousand ways, giving them a great, a
difificult, and a laborious field for their exercise. There is not a
virtue, be it of prudence, justice, fortitude, or temperance, that is
not called forth, put to its trial, and consolidated by the opposition
of evil. There is not a theological virtue, be it faith, hope, or
charity, that is not raised to a higher power, and that may not
become heroic, through the opposition of error, and the trials
and persecutions in all shapes that the humble endure from the
proud, the charitable from the uncharitable, and the godly from
the godless. But the final result is an accumulation of the wealth
of virtue, and sanctity in souls, such as without the opposition of
evil would not exist, or would only exist in a much inferior
degree. The good of just souls rises greatly, therefore, in degree
and quality by their overcoming evil with good ; and holy souls
owe much of their force and elevation to their combat with evil.

Here is the place to consider whether the wonderful providence
of God, that disposes of the evil which man originates, has not so
managed the results of evil for the triumph of good in the just, as
to equal, if not to surpass, the amount of good and sanctity, taken
altogether, which might have existed had evil never been known.

This is a large and profound question, which we hint at rather
than attempt to solve. But here are a few points for consideration.
First, the accumulation of virtue in one soul rises to much greater
dignity, sanctity, and power, by reason of its unity, than if the
same amount of virtue were distributed through a number of less
virtuous souls. For the virtues and moral powers rise and
multiply each other into higher degrees of sanctity when united
in one soul, in proportion to the temptations overcome, the
provocations mastered, and the obstacles vanquished. The faith.

238 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT,

the magnanimity, the humiUty, the generous charity that are
perfected in the martyr, the confessor of faith, the afflicted, the
pastor who gives his hfe for his flock, the sister of charity ; and in
all the just, patient, and generous souls of every class in life ;
accomplish the sanctifying of the soul as much through the
combat with evil, and by the redressing of evil, as by their
inward piety. But a single soul raised by the combat with evil to
heroic virtue and sanctity is a host in herself in comparison with
a thousand, and it may be than ten thousand, who might live but
an ordinary life of piety, with no evil to contend with or to rectify.
Abraham alone by his fidelity amidst an evil generation arose to
such a friendship with God that he almost overbalanced the evil
of five criminal cities. Had there been but five just men in all
those five cities, God would have spared them for the sake of
Abraham. How long did God spare the kings and people of
Juda for the sake of David His servant? Marvellous is the history
of what the saints and just men of all times have accomplished,
both on earth in combating, rectifying, and redressing evil ; and
with God in averting His just anger, and in obtaining His mercy
and compassion over the doers of evil. They overcame evil with
good, both in themselves and in the world around them.

What a picture has St. Paul given us of the Prophets, and to
what a vast number of the heroes of the Gospel will that picture
apply. "Who by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought justice,
obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the
violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered strength
from weakness, became valiant in battle, put to flight the armies
of foreigners ; women received their dead raised to life again.
But others were racked, not accepting deliverance, that they might
find a better resurrection. And others had trial of mockeries and
stripes, moreover also of bands and prisons : they were stoned,
they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death
by the sword, they wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins,
being in want, distressed, afflicted : of whom the world was not
worthy ; wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens, and in
caves of the earth. And all these being approved for the tes-
timony of faith." These are God's heroes, doing all things and
sacrificing all things, with a great spirit and a high soul of sanctity,
for the cause of God. How much might this vivid picture of the
contest of justice with evil be filled up from other great traits in

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 239

the heroes of Christ ? But enough has been said to show how
the great virtues and sanctities are wrought out through the
presence of great evils.

Secondly, if evils had not existed, the greater part of the great
virtues would have had no object for their exercise. Faith, hope,
and charity, with religion and piety, would still have been the virtues
to bring man to perfection ; but where would have been the earthly
and human obstacles by which they are tried and brightened?
Where would be the persecutions in all their forms and shapes by
which these virtues are raised to the heroic degree ? But patience,
fortitude, magnanimity, the combat with self, the mortification of
the senses, the higher exercises of prudence and temperance,
justice to the unjust, charity not only to the unkind but to the
needy and the suffering, the defence of purity, the endurance of
wrong, the vast efforts which the good make to rectify and redress
evil, half the object of all our prayers, and a thousand other
causes of good, which the presence of evil calls into action, would
have no existence.

Thirdly, when we consider the amount of moral good that is
caused by the presence of evil, and consider how much higher
that good rises in the souls of the just through the trials occasioned
by evil and the force of good-will brought out through the generous
conflict with evil ; when, again, we consider how many of the
nobler virtues owe their very existence to the evil which they have
to endure or to surmount, it becomes indeed a grave question
whether God has not drawn more moral good out of mankind at
large by the permission of evil than if evil had never existed. For
however great and widespread that evil may be, especially in times
like ours, we must take all the periods of time together, and re-
member that great trials of evil always produce great virtues, and
that the accumulation of great sanctity and virtue in individual
souls, and their great spiritual works and influences, counterbalance
in the whole sum of sanctity, to a prodigious extent, the sum of
sanctity that might have been, however more widely diffused, had
there been no virtues created through the presence of evil to
overcome evil with good.

What is the patience and long-suffering of God but His long-
abiding mercy over His wilful and wayward children ? What a
picture St. Paul gives us of this long-abiding mercy ? " Or
■despisest thou the riches of His goodness, and patience, and long-

240 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

suffering ? Knowest thou not that the benignity of God leadeth
thee to penance?" It is not God, then, who hardens the sinner,
but the sinner who hardens himself, until his iniquity so deadens
his interior affections that they can no longer receive the impress
of the divine likeness, " But," continues St. Paul, " according to
thy hard and impenitent heart, thou treasures! up to thyself wrath
against the day of wrath and revelation of the just judgment of
God, who will render to every one according to his works. To
them, indeed, who according to patience in good work, seek glory
and honour and incorruption, eternal life : but to them that are
contentious, and obey not the truth, but give credit to iniquity,
wrath and indignation. Tribulation and anguish upon every soul
of man that worketh evil." It is not God, then, who stores up
wrath, but man who treasures up the causes of wrath within him-
self, and who increases the store of tribulation and anguish with
every new iniquity.

To sum up briefly what we have thus far said, in the doctrine
of St. Thomas, the rewards agree with the will j because they are
the good of which we are in search; but punishments disagree
with the will, because they are the evils against which the will
revolts. Sin comes from the will; the punishment rebounds against
the will, because of sin. Hence St. Thomas argues that sin must
be an incomparably greater evil than punishment. We endure a
less evil to prevent a greater evil ; we suffer the amputation of a
limb to save the body. But God, who is the provident protector
of all good, sends punishment in His wisdom to prevent the
growth of the greater evil of sin, which is destructive of all good.
Sin is evil by its native malice ; punishment is but the consequence
of that evil; and not merely that sensible punishment which
deprives the man of corporal good, but that spiritual punishment
which is the privation of light, of order, of grace, of beauty, and
of glory. It is not punishment that makes us evil, but the sin
that deserves punishment. For as the will is good through the
good use of its gifts, it is made evil through the evil use of them ;
and punishment deprives us of the good things that we have used
in an evil manner.

Man is the author of sin, God is the ordainer of punishment.
Punishment is either the privation of good that He has given, or
of good that He has promised, whether it be created good, such
as we have by nature, or uncreated good, such as the beatific

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 241

vision. But the whole malice of evil is in the sin, not in the
punishment ; because sin is opposed to the uncreated good, that
is, to God Himself. It is also opposed to the fulfilment of the
divine will, that is, to the whole rule of good ; and it is likewise
opposed to the love of God, to that divine love whereby we love
the divine good, both for its own sake, and for the sake of
becoming partakers of that good. Sin is therefore opposed to all
good, and to the whole order of good ; and when we have thus
far penetrated its character, it becomes clear and evident that sin
is not because of punishment, but that punishment is because
of sin.*

But besides the general opposition in which all sin whatsoever
is opposed to the universal good, each sin in particular is opposed
to some particular good, each vice is opposed to some special
virtue. Punishment is therefore proportioned to the order, kind,
and degree of good which each special vice or sin opposes and
contradicts. This proportion is measured, as St. Thomas observes,
by the nearer or remoter distance of the good that is contra-
dicted or rejected from our supreme good and final end, an end
which we made not for ourselves, but for which God has made us.
The nearer a good is to God, the greater the good is, and
the privation of it is the greater evil and the greater punishment.
But the good things in man that are nearest to God are the graces
and virtues, and especially the grace and virtue of purity and
charity, by which we most resemble God. The next goods to
these are the right order and disposition of the mind, especially
with respect to faith, and the due subjection of our inferior powers
to faith and right reason. After the health of the soul comes the
health of the body and its soundness, as the responsive instrument
of the soul. Finally, as being of the lowest degree and least
value, come those external goods of the world that are given for
the service of the virtues.

From this essential order and gradation of good, it follows
that of all punishments the greatest that can befall a man is to be
excluded and cast off from his eternal beatitude. The next after
this is the loss of grace and virtue, and consequently of the due
and perfect operation of his powers. After this comes the loss of
the order of the natural powers of his soul, and their consequent
weakness for the right and proper performance of their offices

* S. Thoma, Sum., p. i, q. 48, a. 6.
16

242 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

and duties. Then come the corporal evils and privations of the
body. Last, and least of all, is placed the loss of the exterior
goods of this world.

It would be natural to expect that men would most dread the
greatest punishments, and would look upon the loss of their
greatest good with the utmost horror. This would undoubtedly
be the case if all men lived the life of faith and charity ; but this
is far from being the case. Most men Uve a natural rather than
a supernatural life, and are not even faithful to their nature and
reason. But the less a man has of moral good, the more blind
he is to the greater good, to that good for which he is made.
This blindness comes from his infidelity to the light of his mind,
and to the admonitions of his conscience. But fi-om this spiritual
blindness the human will is often more reluctant to give up the
inferior things of this world and of the body, than to surrender
the greatest good of the soul. A large number, especially of
those who live amidst a corrupting civilization, know and care a
vast deal more about sensual and temporal good than about
intellectual, moral, spiritual, and divine good, and value them
more. In this blind condition, the soul sees all things perversely,
and puts the whole order of good upside down. The victims of
this blindness look upon corporal privations as more grievous
than spiritual privations, and on corporal punishments as more
calamitous than spiritual punishments. To them the greatest of
punishments is the outward humiliation of their reputation, the
suffering of corporal afflictions, or the loss of temporal things.
As to disorder of soul, the loss of spiritual light, the departure of
grace, or the lowering of virtue, they are of small account to tho^e
who rarely think of God or of the soul. There are many men
who will not have their low ways of thinking and judging inter-
fered with by sage or saint, or by God Himself. To put before
their minds the eternal order of things, to show in that order how
infinitely superior the divine good is above human good, and how
infinitely greater eternal punishment is than temporal punish-
ment, is to insult their pride as well as their life. The notion of
denying the body to give freedom and elevation to the soul is
to them an offence and an absurdity. Their habits have perverted
their reason.

These perverted views of the order of good explain how men
become scandalized with God, as though His punishments were

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 243

unequal. They see the wicked man in vigour of body, and in the
full flow of temporal prosperity, whilst just men often suffer, and
are low in earthly advantages ; and they are tempted to conclude
that the providence of God is at fault, and that He does not
punish iniquity. But to the children of light these things are
neither a wonder nor a scandal. They know that the body is for
the soul, that exterior is for the sake of interior good, and that
inferior things are only good in so far as they help us to obtain
interior and superior good. But whatever of inferior good they
may have in themselves, when they hinder our superior good^
they become blocks in the way, snares to the feet, and obstacles
to our greater good, and therefore a cause of evil to us.

The Divine Disposer of all things knows both our strength and
weakness. He knows what will help, and He knows what will
hinder, the advancement of each child of Adam towards his
eternal good. He gives to the just man the temporal goods that
will help him in virtue, and will turn to his everlasting advantage.
He takes them away where He sees they will turn him to evil, or
that he will turn them to evil, or will keep him from better
things, or perhaps deprive him of his eternal happiness. This
privation of temporal good is directed to eternal good. To the
just man, therefore, these privations are no punishment, especially
as he accepts them with good-will as being ordained by the pro-
vidence of God.

But to leave these corporal and temporal goods to the unjust
man is a heavy punishment, not because they are against his
present will, but because they will lead to greater sins, and will
draw him further from God, which will bring him by his own acts
into greater punishments against his will. He is, therefore, less
under the providence of God than the just man, who for his
spiritual and eternal good is deprived of those corporal and
temporal things. But if the unjust man is deprived of temporal
goods, or suffers in body, it is a severe punishment to him ; he
not only suffers against his will, but as these are his supreme
goods, he has nothing better upon which to rest his soul. The
just man is not punished because he suffers privation in sub-
mission to the will of God, which he makes his own ; but the
unjust man suffers either for his past or for his present sins, and
therefore his sufferings are a punishment, although that punish-
ment may not heal him. If, however, he is left in prosperity,

244 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

these words of wisdom find their truth in him : " The creatures of
God are turned into an abomination, and a temptation, and a
snare to the feet of the unwise ".

" According to the measure of the sin shall be the measure of
the stripes." Trials sent to wean the soul from temptation, to
strengthen her in patience, to detach her from self-love, and to
purify her for greater gifts, when generous souls accept them
with humility and thankfulness, are not punishments but loving
providences. Real punishments are proportioned to the kind of
sin, and the degree of malice in the will. A sin that turns the
soul away from God as her supreme end is mortal. A sin that
does not turn the soul away from God as her supreme end is
venial. The punishment of the first is the privation of her final
end, and of her spiritual life. The punishment of the second is a
certain retardation of the soul's liberty in approaching to her
divine good, and a certain slackening of the force of spiritual
life, according to the nature and frequency of the sin. Venial
sins make our progress more difficult, and those who love God
know what a punishment that is.

Some punishments are ordained for the amendment of sinners,
others for the expiation and purgation of souls repentant of their
sins, be it in this world or in the next. For after sin is forgiven an
expiation remains, an expiation that draws its efficacy from its
union with the one, the only, the divine expiation, that was-
offered on the Cross. But the punishment of sinners who turn
from God and never turn to Him again, who surrender the life
of the soul to the creature, and never return to the life of justice,
that awful punishment is as everlasting as the soul ; not because
God dehghts in punishment, but because He is just to the eternal
order of things — ^just both to evil and to good. As in human
justice the greater criminals are exiled from society, both to
deter from like evils and to keep society pure ; so in the divine
justice, some are separated for ever from God and from the just
because it is just, and is due to the nature of things, and is
inevitable ; also that the fear of like evils may keep other men
from evil ; and because, after the probation of the just is ended,
society must then be kept pure and holy for evermore. It is
therefore said of the heavenly Jerusalem : " There shall not
enter into it anything defiled, or that worketh abomination or
maketh a lie, but they that are written in the book of the Lamb ".

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

245

But punishment is more than a privation, it is also an infliction.
As the sinner not only turns from the Creator but turns to the
creature, as he not only deserts God but makes the creature his
chief good, he not only loses what he has abandoned, but is
punished by the creature, for whose sake he has quitted the law
of his Creator. As he has brought the creature to ignominy by
his abuse of it, the creature itself must become his punishment.
Who fears to lose what he does not value ? Who fears to lose
what he so readily abandons ? Can he who neither thinks nor
cares for his eternal happiness be kept from evil through the fear
of its loss ? There must be other punishments, therefore, such as
the sinner will fear, punishments of sense from the creature, such
as he cannot help understanding and fearing, even in the midst
of his sins.

As there is a good due even from the creation to those who
use it well and wisely, there is an evil due from the creation to
those who use it wrongfully and foolishly. And as God has made
it just by His promise, that they who love Him above all things,
and devote themselves to Him, shall find their perfection and joy
in Him ; He has equally ordained that they who love the creature
rather than the Creator, shall find their punishment from the
creature. Having given their soul to the things beneath her, and
inferior to her, against all order, reason, and nature, these same
things shall become to her the active cause of suffering and
misery. Hence in the Sacred Scriptures God so often threatens
sinners, not only with the loss of Heaven, but also with grievous
sufferings from His creatures, changed through their folly into the
instruments of His sovereign will and justice. " He will sharpen
His severe wrath as a sword, and the world shall fight with Him
against the foolish."*

As the imagination is a great element in seducing souls to evil,
it is a great element in the punishment of evil. Think what it is
for a soul to be stripped of all earthly surroundings, to be
detached from the mortal body, and given up to the disorder and
confusion wrought upon her in the course of an evil life. As that
great disciple of the apostolic men, St. Irenseus, says : They held
themselves aloof from the paternal light, and as they had power
over their wills, they overpassed the law of liberty with iniquity.

* For the whole argument, see S. Thoma, Summa contra Gentiles, 1. iii.,
c. 140-145.

246 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

God has, therefore, prepared a dwelling for them that suits their
dispositions; as they despised the light, He has prepared darkness
for them with befitting punishment.* Memory, the sense of loss,
and the baleful sufferings within and around their spirits, must,
therefore, be to them in place of light. There can be nothing earthly
and nothing heavenly to take the soul from off herself. There is no
justice to keep the powers of the soul in order, no charity to keep
them in unity, no good to keep them in pleasant exercise. The
defection of evil has loosened the whole spirit into disorder and
confusion. The capacity for infinite good is vacant of good ; the
living subject is void even of the hope of her living object. The
fallen spirit has not even the light that illuminates the eternal
good, but only the reason why both the light and the good are
lost to her for ever. Every disordered and distracted faculty of
that spirit wants its good object ; the soul is, therefore, dark,
loveless, dreary, full of fears and alarms ; and the inextinguishable
conflagration from the interminable disorders of the unchangeable
evils among which that soul is placed, and of which she makes a
part, destroys without destroying, because those spirits are
immortal in immortal pains. The worm of conscience dieth not,
the fire is not extinguished. But what gives to the worm its sting,
and to the fire its force, is the evil in the soul that rejects the
everlasting good for which she was created. The justice that
shone in her mind she would not have in her heart, and behold,
that justice is with her for ever !

There is an admirable communion of all holy spirits and souls,
who are united in God for their mutual good and happiness.
And there is a portentous communion of all evil spirits and
souls, who work together to mutual punishment and misery. The
good help each other in many ways, invisibly as well as visibly.
This is one of the grand mysteries of faith. The malignant
torment each other in many ways. This is one of the great
mysteries of evil. The general tradition of mankind from its
earliest records accords with the Sacred Scriptures in the belief,
which from Genesis to the Apocalypse exhibit the good angels
ministering to men of good-will, whilst the apostate angels tempt
men to evil, strive for their ruin, and insult them in their misery.
The spiritual world is close upon us, and only separated from our
vision by the earthly things that veil our spirits. When Eliseus
* S. Irenaeus, Advcrsus Harcses, 1. iv., c. 39.

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 247

obtained by his prayer the opening of the eyes of his servant, he saw
the armies of the Lord encamped around them more numerous and
mighty than the army of Assyria. And St. Paul tells the faithful,
not that you will come, but that " you are come ... to the
company of many thousands of angels . . . and to the spirits of
the just made perfect ". On the other hand, St. Peter warns us :
" Be sober and watch ; because your adversary the devil, like
a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom
resist ye strong in faith ; knowing that the same affliction befalls
your brethren who are in the world." Everywhere the Scriptures
show that the fallen angels are the seducers of mankind. It is
accordant, therefore, with eternal justice, and ordained in the
divine decrees, that the just, who have accepted the help and
guidance of holy angels and the examples of the saints, should
enter their heavenly society; and that the wicked, who have
followed the evil angels in their seductions, should follow them
to their punishment.

Many persons devote themselves in these educated days to the
wonders, beauties, and sublimities of Nature ; but much of this
study and contemplation is unreasonable, because they think not
of the Divine Author of these wonderful works. But when they
turn to works of art, they act reasonably by going to the mind of
the artist, and think as much of him as of his work. What a
creation of beauty and sublimity they would find, if they devoted
themselves to the wonderful works of God's mercy. But, like all
the profounder truths, they are paradoxes to the natural man,
however clear to the spiritual man. For example, were it not for
the pains," trials, and afflictions of this mortal life, that force men
back upon themselves, pierce them with sorrow, soften them to
the sense of their inward wants, and compel them to ascend to
God for relief, how small would be the number to escape the final
evil. But when the divine mercy makes the too attractive flower
of this life to die among the thorns, and the spirit shrinks home
to herself, and there finds God awaiting her return, the first fear
of His presence changes to attraction, and the eternal beauties
begin to dawn upon her. Sufferings and sorrows are the medicines
of the soul ; sharp afflictions are the surgical remedies, cutting out
the gangrene of pride, and cleansing away the humours of self-
love.

The sufferings of souls are chiefly the result of evil habits,

248 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

either conscious or unconscious to the sufferer. Often, indeed,
these habits are unconscious, lying deep and hidden from sight,
for want of that humihty that brings them to self-knowledge, and
secures their departure. For self-love is the root and cause of
all spiritual maladies ; it weakens and inflames the soul, making
her keenly sensitive to the suffering of nature. If, observes the
eminent \a\\.tx whom we are quoting in this and subsequent
paragraphs,* you inflict an equal amount of suffering on two
persons, one of whom has ten degrees of self-love, and the other
ten degrees of the love of God, and if you multiply the ten
degrees of weakness by the ten degrees of strength, you will
find that the one who has ten degrees of self-love will suffer a
hundred times more than the one who has the ten degrees of the
love of God, This is no theory, but the experience of those who
have the guidance of souls.

As pain is providentially ordained to enforce attention to the
wounds and maladies of the body, and to compel us to seek
their cure ; so the pains of conscience warn us of the presence
of evil in the soul, and enforce self-examination, conversion, and
repentance. Conscience warns the will before the act to deter
us from evil acts, and after the evil act is done, it inflicts trouble
and distress. " God hath ordained," says St. Augustine, " that
every disorderly soul should be her own executioner." Whilst
the wounded body suffers pain there is yet hope, the vital
elements are striving to restore the injured part to life and sound-
ness. If the conscience ceases to inflict pain on the wounded
soul, the evil has hardened and grown inveterate ; there is loss
of sensibility to evil, paralysis of spirit, and the numbness of
death. " The man is tranquil," says St. Isidore, " from ignorance
of himself, and insolent from ignorance of God."

The souls of just men suffer in their season, but with in-
calculable profit to themselves. How different in kind and remote
in spirit are the sufferings of the just from those of the unjust.
They suffer like holy Job, in hope, in an elevated spirit, and for
their greater purification. They suffer but to gain a greater
abstraction from selfish weakness ; to make a nobler surrender
of themselves to God ; to the deepening of their faith ; to a more
invigorating generosity ; to the deepening of self-knowledge and
humility; and to the drawing with intenser affection towards
• Rosmini, Discorso delV Amore Divino.

ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT. 249

that Supreme Good in whom all sufferings find an end. The
principle of the commutation of forces is far from being limited
to material things ; because all activity conveyed into material
things has its origin in spiritual powers, " from invisible things all
things visible were made ". Holy souls have the power of quietly
transforming inflicted sufferings into sanctity. This is the mystery
of the Cross.

There are even causes of suffering, and of great suffering, to
pure and humble souls, that the sensual and proud cannot
understand. They suffer at the spectacle of sins in a way that
the lovers of God can alone understand, and their sufferings as
well as prayers are expiatory offerings for the conversion of
sinners. They suffer from the sight of their own weakness.
They suffer from delay of the better things that make them
perfect. They suffer from every cloud that comes between
their spirit and the view of God. They suff'er from the hope
delayed of the eternal vision. They suffer, as none but they can
understand, from the strain upon their nature through the ex-
panding influence of the fire of divine charity. Their sufferings
arise from no pain of evil, troubling their peace and rest within,
but from the pains of divine love working in a soul still
imprisoned and confined by the earthly body.

How can any one say that the just and the unjust suffer alike ?
The just soul suffers from external evils only, and suffers them in
peace and charity ; whilst the unjust soul suffers not only from
external evils, but much more from internal evils, and suffers with
misery. The just soul suffers with hope and resignation, looking
to the speedy end of all suffering. The unjust soul suffers
fruitlessly and hopelessly, suffers unhappily and unresignedly,
seeing no termination to suffering, unless God grant the grace of
conversion. The just soul suffers in God, and in the upholding
strength of God. The unjust soul suffers in herself, having no
spiritual strength, in the weakness of wounded pride, and with the
self-love that sharpens sensibility to suffering. The just soul is
conscious of the secret benedictions which God conceals in her
sufferings, detaching her from self, and drawing her affections from
things perishable to things imperishable. The unjust soul has all
her trials aggravated from the bitter root of evil within her, with
fears in the imagination and forebodings of a dreadful future. The
just soul looks from the centre of her life unto the sure light of

250 ON PENAL EVIL OR PUNISHMENT.

God, and muses on the divine promise : " I am with thee in thy
troubles; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me ". But "the
wicked man is proud all his days, the sound of dread is always in
his ears : and when there is peace he always expecteth treason ".
" Such," says St. Gregory on the text, " are the suspicions and
terrors of guilty consciences. What is music to the ears of the
just is to them the discordant sounding of evil. They fear when
no one pursueth. The falling leaf or the murmuring stream may
inspire them with alarm. The just man is in peace whilst the con-
science of the wicked will not leave him" in security. The very
walls that hide him seem to know his secret. Though no one
shares his secret, yet were he buried in a tomb of the desert, his
conscience gives him no rest from fear."

The soul that loves God has only reverential fears. She has
but little delight in this world, because her heart is with her treasure.
But the unjust man is at war with his better nature, and with the
nobler good intended for him ; he has no delight beyond this
world, and every attack of disease, every touch of calamity, brings
the end of life in view with alarm, with the anticipated sense of loss,
with the bitings of remorse, with memories too bitter to dwell upon,
and with servile fears. Invisible powers, strange though obscure
mysteries, are about the dying man, whose hopes are left with his
body in the grave.

In a word, to evil men all the evils of this life are pure evils ;
whilst to the man of good will they are changed by their contact
with his good-will into a hundredfold of good. To the man of
grace and good-will, therefore, the Psalmist sings with confidence
that he is protected by God : " He will overshadow thee with His
shoulders : and under His wings thou shalt trust. His truth shall
compass thee with a shield : thou shalt not be afraid of the terror
of the night, of the arrow that flieth about in the day, of the
business that walketh in the dark ; of invasion or of the noonday
devil. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy
right hand : but these evils shall not come nigh to thee. But thou
shalt consider with thine eyes and shalt see the reward of the
wicked."

LECTURE X.

WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT.

" When that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done
away." — i Corinthians xiii. lo.

A CRY is sometimes heard from unbelieving hearts, which is a
cry of self-vindication, and is expressed in terms like these :
" Why are we so weak and unfinished ? If God is indefinitely good,
why are we left exposed to evil and misery ? " Sometimes men who
are weak in faith are likewise heard to murmur, but in notes more
hushed and low, and the burden of their plaint is this : " Why did not
God so make us that we might not sin?" These cries rose to a
clamour with the Valentinians in the second century of Christianity,
and were replied to by the great Bishop and Martyr of Lyons, St.
Irenaeus, the disciple of the apostolic men. They were raised
anew by the Manichaeans of the fourth and fifth centuries, and
were replied to by St. Basil, St. Augustine, and Titus of Bozra.

The question is of great extent, embracing the whole nature of
intellectual creation as well as the whole economy of God. For
its solution we must look not only to the light of reason but to
the light of revelation, and when we have brought these two lights
to bear upon the subject, we shall not fail to obtain a profound
instruction, both as to the nature of the rational creature, and the
character of God's external operations. No question can more
thoroughly explain the infinite distance between the Creator and
the creature, or give more light upon the wisdom of God as it is
manifested in the ways of His providence and the dispensations of
His grace. The question has been delayed to this Tenth Lecture
expressly with the view of your being prepared for its considera-
tion by the principles already put forth and explained; and

252 WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT

although the compass of a lecture is but brief for so vast a theme,
yet even this limited extent of consideration cannot fail to
strengthen the minds of those who love to enlarge their souls and
animate their piety by reflecting on the wonderful ways of God.

As the nature of God is goodness, as His power is omnipotence,
and His work is mercy, we must expect such a plan from His
eternal mind for the formation of His intelligent creatures as shall
exceed in goodness, magnificence, and mercy all that our weak
and limited minds could by the light of our reason in our present
state anticipate, especially whilst obscured by earth, sensuality, and
sin. As God is most simple, because most perfect, we must also
expect the eternal plan to be one and simple as it exists in the
mind of God. But to us who are far removed from the open
presence of God, are chained to our bodily senses, and live among
countless shadows and obscurations, the wonderful design of God
can only be seen in part, and its execution anticipated in part, as
beheld in obscure lights that reach us through the veils and
curtains of created things.

Let us return for a moment to the Book of Job : " Behold, God
is high in strength, and there is no one like to Him among the law-
givers. Who can search out His ways ? or who can say to Him :
Thou hast wrought iniquity. Remember that thou knowest not
His work, which men have sung. All men see Him, every one
beholdeth Him afar off. Behold God is great, conquering know-
ledge, the number of His years cannot be reached ? " Who can
search out His ways, who " inhabiteth unapproachable light," and
whom "no man hath seen at any time"? Yet all men see Him afar
off, they see Him in the things that bear witness to Him. We see
His truth in the light of our reason ; His law in the voice of our
conscience ; His justice in our sense of wrongdoing ; His promise
of greater good in our aspirations towards better things. The testi-
mony of God's presence is in the soul of every man ; he has only
to enter into himself, and he will find it there. Man would not
be at all were God not with him, and he with God, however
secret from mortal sight that eternal presence may be. And he
certainly would not be man, unless the witness of God were in his
conscience.

But " we know not His work, which men have sung ". The
devout prophets, poets, philosophers ,'jxnd theologians have made
God and His works the highest theme of their contemplation ; but

WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT 253

who has seen God's side of His works ? The sun's side of the
cloud is luminous, but its earthly side is dark. Who has seen
God at His work of creation ? Who has seen the Word of God
within the Father's bosom, through whom all things are made ?
Who has seen the light of God's mind in which He beholds all
things? Who has seen His Holy Spirit of wisdom, "reaching from
end to end of all things mightily, and disposing of all things
sweetly " ? We are but children of a short time, born in the mid-
way of things, new comers into a world that is yet strange to us,
and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. As the bird in the
egg, we are stil^in the first and immature stage of our existence,
and often confound shadows with realities, and are startled at
fancies and fears which make the wise in heaven smile.

To get a partial sight of a piece here and a piece there of some
grand design will not give us the mind of the artist. The men in the
ranks do not see the order in which the great army is marshalled,
that is in the mind of the commander. If you enter the works of
some great engineer, and begin to handle tools and machines that
you don't understand, you may not only get wounded, but may
have your limbs crushed for your ignorant interference. But if you
came to the conclusion that the evil is in the works, and not in
your own rash conduct, you will show more folly in your judgment
than rashness in your acts. The man who has never ruled anything
but his family will know but little of the mind that governs a king-
dom ; and the man who rules a kingdom will have but a very
limited knowledge of the mind of God, who governs the universe.
What do these men of new lights, with the freshest theory of the
universal plan in their mind, know either of the universe, or of the
Divine Ruler of the universe ? They have only got the old light
of the old human reason in a twist that makes it look like new.
That terminal ray which has entered the mind from the universal
light in a condition so thin and attenuated, after being refracted
from its primal purity through the medium of created things, has
not the strength and compass that will enable us to embrace both
God and His works.

To see God's works as God beholds them demands His infinite
vision. But you are as yet confined to your earthly place at a vast
depth below the regions of light \ are confined, as it were, to a
single bay within the obscure crypts of that glorious palace of the
universe which God has built for His delight and glory ; and you

254 J^f^^y MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT.

must wait until the Divine Architect comes to teach you before
you can understand the unity, the order, and extent of its design,
and its magnificent arrangements.

" There was none like to Him among the lawgivers." In what
condition art thou, then, O creature of a day, to judge the decrees
of the Divine Legislator ? Hast thou entered into the unapproach-
able light in which God dwelleth ? Hast thou sat in council with
Him ? Dost thou not know that the Eternal King has His royal
reserves of wisdom, as well as His published laws ? He has taught
us by His works. He has taught us by His prophets, last of all He
has taught us by His Son. But He has not equalled us to Himself
in knowledge. For as far as God is above the creature, so far is
His light above our light, and His knowledge above our know-
ledge. " Peradventure," says holy Job, " thou wilt comprehend
the steps of God, and wilt find out the Almighty perfectly. He
is higher than heaven, and what wilt thou do? He is deeper
than hell, and how wilt thou know? ... He knoweth the
vanity of men."

" The Lord is high, conquering our knowledge." God conquers
our knowledge when He shows us the limits of our reason and
the errors into which our senses involve us. He conquers our
knowledge when He teaches us to seek truth from Him by faith,
and greater knowledge by an humble dependence on His Word.
Even the most enlightened of us cannot penetrate through the
forms and qualities of things into that secret force which con-
stitutes their substance. Nor can we see how they exist in the
power of God, and not in their own. Under every order, species,
and individual thing, be it the petal of a flower, the wing of a fly,
or the soul of man, there is a mystery too profound for either
sense or mind to fathom. But when we rest on the God of truth,
we rest upon all truth, both what He generously teaches us, and
what He royally reserves for the eternal day.

If we see certain great principles of truth by direct perception,
they can only be applied through a process of reasoning that
marks the limitation of our vision. If by the faculty of com-
parison we gain many clear and certain conclusions, in how many
cases is the result of our mental labours left in doubt and
uncertainty. We see not the broad, full prospect of truth, but
only the procession of truth after truth, won to our understanding
by thought after thought. We have not seen the ocean of truth.

WBY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT 255

but only the raindrops wafted to us from that ocean ; not the
light of truth in its fountain, where all truth is one and indivisible,
but only certain terminal and disparted rays of truth. We see not
that truth in its native purity, but as invested with an imagery
befitting our compound nature of soul and body, of mind and
earthly sense. Truths that seem wide apart to our limited in-
telligence, however united in themselves, we often find it hard to
conciliate, because we want the perception of that intermediate
truth in which they are united. Hence difficulties arise to us
which God alone can conquer, by infusing a greater light into our
minds. For although the whole light of the object of our thought
is all around us, and is not farther from us than the God of truth,
yet our mind is limited, and our understanding, immersed in sense,
and often alienated from God, and crossed by the shadows projected
from ourselves, is only sufficiently illuminated to touch this and
that point, that looms through the mists and shadows raised from
sensible things, that veil the object in its completeness from our
eyes. Thus compassed with obscurity, we are inclined to imagine
with vividness, not the truth that is open to us, so much as
what we feel within ourselves, and to judge what is beyond us
according to our own temper and disposition.

What remains for us but that, by going out of ourselves, we
listen to the voice of eternal truth, revealing to our faith what we
see not with our reason. The revelation of God is the abundant
communication of what our reason cannot reach. Faith is the
reasonable and consistent adhesion of our mind to the Author of
all truth. If the chief sum of our human knowledge comes of
faith in our fellow-men, and the affairs of human life rest on faith
in each other, why should we hold back our faith from the God
of truth, when He makes known to us what of ourselves we cannot
see, until, in reward for our faith, the vision of truth shall be opened
to our enraptured gaze. Faith is the preordained remedy for our
natural ignorance of divine things, and we ought to be content
with divine authority, and to bear our own ignorance with patience
and peace. This just order of things God has measured out for
our state of trial. It is our "reasonable service to God well
pleasing " ; the sacrifice of our mental pride, and the proper
remedy for our pride of heart.

The bent of pride is to independence. This morbid tendency
makes the man restless and impatient under his present ignorance,

256 PVHV MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT

and ambitious to have the command of knowledge. He will not
see that knowledge commands him. Vain of the surface know-
ledge of what falls under the senses, and of his dominion over
material things, he thinks to make himself independent of the
authority of God, when He delivers the eternal truth. Proud of an
imaginary liberty, and not seeing that it chains him to his inferior
nature with a hard servitude, he looks with a kind of horror to a
revelation that subjects his mind and will to the divine authority,
and compels him to realise that God is both his master and
his teacher. He scorns the truth that comes through faith, be-
cause it is the gift of the humble, and because he cannot ascribe it
to his own fountain. But the humility of the humble, which is
the most generous of all virtues, and the reasonable service of the
whole man to truth, knows and confesses the restricted limits of
man's reason, disposes the soul to faith, and leads the reason up to
that truth which the Eternal Wisdom reveals. Then God conquers
our knowledge, and helps our submission to the truth through the
victorious strength of His grace. " In His hand He hideth the
light, and commandeth it to come again. He showeth His
friends concerning it, that it is His, and that they may come up
to it."

If you could see God's creative and providential action, moving
from eternity through the ages unto eternity, you might have some
notion of the divine plan of creation. If you could see all the
generations of the children of Adam pass before you, and could
compass the operations of God throughout the extent of the
human family, you might know something of the breadth of the
eternal design. If you could scale the heights of heaven, and
behold the just made perfect, and then descend into the abyss,
and behold the refuse of humanity in its failure ; and if you
could see the prodigious provisions of light and grace, beyond the
native powers of man, by the help of which the blessed have
ascended to God, and then see the wonderful helps that the
unhappy who have fallen from God have rejected, you might
know something of the height and depth of God's moral govern-
ment of the human race.

But, as it is, what do you know of any one's internal history
beyond your own ? And how much do you know of your own ?
How far have you measured in detail, or taken the total sum, of
the providential gifts, and the divine influences, which under God's

WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT 257

guiding hand have come to you ? How much have you accepted,
or how much of all have you neglected or rejected ? How much
do you know of the conduct of your mind towards God's light ?
Or of the conduct of your will towards His grace ? Or of your
general-conduct towards His providence? The waste of oppor-
tunity given to men is enormous. What just and true distinction
have you made between God's part in you, and what is justly and
fairly your own ? The whole question of human justice towards
God lies in this interrogation. But if you know so little of your-
self, how can you expect to know the height and depth, the length
and breadth, of God's eternal plan in creating the human race,
except so far as it has pleased Him to teach you.

Nature cannot be violated. Man cannot exist before he is
created ; he cannot be called to the divine council to say how he
shall be made, or to what end he shall be made. Were he made,
as some in their blind conceit imagine they ought to be made, he
would be something very much less than man. Yet no one really
wishes to exchange his personal existence for that of another,
however gifted, for that would be his own annihilation. What he
really wants is to better his own condition, and that is in his power
if he chooses to accept the means. The reaches of his mind and
of his heart are unlimited, and he has only to bend his stubborn
nature down to God, to receive the means by which he may
advance to the infinite and eternal good. In these facts, written
in every sincere conscience, the plan of God becomes manifest,
and it rebukes the presumption of those men who complain of
their imperfect nature instead of working to obtain its perfection.

Nothing more clearly proves the wisdom of one order of things
than the absurdities that present themselves on the assumption of
another the directly opposite. Instructed by the previous lectures,
you will be able to enter into the sense, or you may more truly
call it the nonsense, of the following supposition. Let us indulge
the querulous man with the absurd fancy that he might have
existed before his existence, and might have made himself in a
better way. It is excessively ridiculous, but let us place the im-
possibility for a ground of argument.

In the first place, this self-creator can have no claim upon God :
he must make himself for himself; he must begin and end in himself;
and what self is without God we have already seen. In the second
place, he will have no right to the creatures of God ; and how is

17

258 M^IfV MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT

he to get on without them ? In the next place, he could not give
himself those immortal gifts that, in the nature of things, belong to
God alone. "WTiere would be the image of God? Where that
trinity of powers in one spiritual substance which has its glory in
its divine original ? Where would be the light of reason and the
principles of unchangeable truth ? God alone can implant them, as
created reflections of His own eternal truth, as He does implant
them in every soul at its creation. Where would be the appetite for
universal good ? Having nothing in him greater than himself, to what
greater good could he aspire ? Where would be the capacity for
eternal things? And if it were there, how could it be provided for?
Made for himself, his capacity could not extend beyond himself.
Having no choice between himself and things greater than himself,
where would be his freedom ? Subject and object at once, without
any personal distinction between them, there could be no free move-
ment between one and the other. The whole work, for man it could
not be, must eventuate in a dull stupidity. Where would be the
light of justice and the law of conscience, those reflections of the
divine order and eternal justice of things ? These can only be
implanted in souls by God to guide them to imperishable good.
Where, again, would be the spiritual provisions to nourish the
heart and the hfe ? And where those increasing radiations of the
Divine Spirit, that give faith, and hope, and the love of eternal
things ? Self-love must be of necessity the principle of that self-
created one, for what other principle could the self -creator
implant? But self-love with nothing better to feed upon is the
last degree of misery. A creature made on no higher type than
its own subjective existence, and so shorn of the lights and hopes
of better things, must be an irrational, unconscienced, lawless, irre-
sponsible, and idiotic thing. It could have none of those nobler gifts
whose first principle is in God. It would be a hopeless bundle of
chaotic sensations without an object. Yet, strange as it may sound
to good Christian ears, there are men who, in the name of science,
go so far in their folly as to attempt to remake themselves by the
process of separating themselves from God. But God upholds them
in His creative hand, nevertheless, and that with infinite patience ;
for were it otherwise, their separation would be their annihilation.
This is the moral of our otherwise absurd supposition.

The reasons why God did not make man perfect, as far as we
are able to see them, may be stated under these six heads :

WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT 259

1. There is but one uncreated Being, who is absolutely perfect
with every kind of perfection, and He is the reason and the cause
of all things that exist. As man is a creation of God, and is
made from nothing, he must of necessity be limited, and as a
limited being he must be changeable. As a creature he
must also of necessity be dependent on his Creator. A being
so independent as to want for nothing, and to be incapable
of failure, would not be man, but God. But a limited and
changeable creature must, by the nature of things, be in itself
imperfect.

2. It is an immeasurably greater work on the part of God, and
is incomparably more honourable to the creature, that God should
have made man to be a cause in himself, than if his Creator had
been the one and only cause of his perfection. We perhaps seldom
realise the grandeur of a creative act which puts the rational
creature into his own power, with freedom to originate his own
actions, so that with the helps given him by God he may work out
his own perfection. It is this free power of causation implanted in his
will that makes him the originator of his own acts ; it is a certain
sub-creative power that God has given to his creature, by which
he most resembles God. But as this will, or power of causation,
belongs to the creature, it is essentially limited, and therefore
changeable. As it is placed between superior good and many
kinds of inferior good, it is free to choose superior good or to turn
to inferior good, and to cleave with affection to one or to the other.
But man is perfected by willing superior good, and is deteriorated
by willing inferior good ; and as both himself and his will are
made from nothing, unless his will is divinely strengthened, his
natural tendency is to those inferior things that are nearest to his
native nothingness.

3. The perfection of what is created is not in itself, but in its
final end. Nothing is made for itself, but for something greater
than itself. God has an end in view in all that He creates, or He
would not be the Eternal Wisdom. But the end of man is God.
He can only, therefore, be perfected when he reaches his final end
in God. For this end he bears the image of God. No image has
glory in itself, but only from the original which it represents. And
this living image is made to be filled according to its capacity with
the power and glory of God. But this implies a complete subjec-
tion of the soul to God. In the nature of things, therefore, man

26o WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT.

cannot be perfect in himself, he can only be perfect when he is
united with God.

4. The primary end of man's creation is the glory of God in the
manifestation of His divine attributes. But as these external
manifestations are made to limited creatures, they are distinct and
progressive. First the power of God is manifested in the act of
creation ; next the wisdom of God is manifested in the order of
providence, by which one thing is made to advance and
complete another. Then to the rational creature made for God,
the light of truth and justice is communicated, which brings that
rational creature into relation with the invisible and eternal
world. And after the rational man is formed, he still has need of
the supernatural gifts of faith and charity, to bring his mind and
heart into direct communion with God. Thus the natural
manifestations of God to His creature are followed by His divine
and supernatural manifestations. But the grand and final manifes-
tation of God to His intelligent creature is when, in reward for
his fidelity. He manifests Himself by the beatific vision.

5. The due counterpart to the progressive manifestation of God
to His creature is the progressive advancement of the creature
towards God. Man is made with the noble attribute of free will,
that he may co-operate with God in accomplishing his own perfec-
tion ; he is therefore a moral being, and this is the explanation of
his conscience. But he is made from nothing, and the distance
between nothingness and God is infinite. Justice and truth
require that man should know the nothingness from which he is
taken, and that he should clearly know that he owes all things to
God, otherwise his mind would be filled with the most destructive
error, and his heart with most destructive injustice. He has
therefore received his creation on the verge of nothingness, with
little substance of good, but with great capacity for good. He is
made both perfect and imperfect ; perfect in capacity for infinite
good, but imperfect in not having reached that good ; because he
cannot be really perfect until he has reached the unchangeable
good. For God has given him a complete nature to be perfected
by what is above his nature, and above all created and creatable
natures. God has given him this great capacity for what is greater
than himself, and the free principle of action, that he might have
the unspeakable privilege and dignity of co-operating with God in
the glorious work of perfecting himself, by corresponding willingly

WIfV MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT. 261

with all the gifts of nature and grace, and with all the manifesta-
tions of goodness and mercy that God shall vouchsafe to him. By
thus advancing from light to light, from grace to grace, and from
virtue to virtue, man is able to reach an incomparably greater per-
fection than if he had been made as perfect as he could be from
the first, without the free exercise of his own will and conduct.

6. The very fact that man is made for what is infinitely
greater than he is, that he is made for God, and not for himself,
implies that he must be imperfect before he can be perfect. As
an intelligent and moral being, made to know, to will, and to love,
yet brought into existence from nothing, he must be tried before
he can be approved. His nature must receive divine elements of
light and power, before he can ascend in mind and heart towards
the divine good, and he must show that he can be faithful to the
divine good he receives whilst yet on trial, before he is united to the
unchangeable good for evermore. In his responsible days of pro-
bation, instead of being at discord with the Eternal Truth, or with
the divine elements of grace, he must freely and willingly respond
to them, and make them actively his own, by the exercise of those
supernatural virtues of which they are the principle. He has, then,
within him those divine powers that will bring him to God, and to
his perfection.

It is the distance of man, therefore, from the final object of his
existence that makes him imperfect, and is the cause of his unhappi-
ness. But every step which he takes towards God advances him
on the way of perfection, and diminishes his unhappiness. It is
not those who are in their due order towards God, and who give
their hearts to Him, who are dissatisfied with their present condi-
tion, or complain of being unhappy ; but it is those only who are
unfaithful to God, and who vainly seek for their chief end in them-
selves. And here let me make a remark which is of vital impor-
tance. If we see such a vast amount of moral misery in the
present state of the world, of a moral misery which is incompar-
ably the greatest of all miseries, and either causes or deepens every
other kind of suffering, we may ascribe no small part of it to the
exclusion of the principle of final causes from the sphere of modern
thought, and to the bold asserting of man's self-sufficiency. These
destructive methods of thinking percolate into every kind of
writing and reach every kind of reader, soaking into and sapping
the foundations of religious truth in minds innumerable. Yet, in

262 IVBY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT.

the practical afifairs of this life, men invariably act on the principle
of final causes ; they shape their means to their ends, and the
intermediate ends are made subordinate to the chief end they
have in view.

But man himself has a final end, to which all other ends are sub-
ordinate; and nothing can be more irrational than to exclude that
end from human thought and conduct. The old philosophies, as
Varro has shown, made the chief good of man the first object of their
thought and inquirj'. But in these disjointed times, even when
not theoretically, yet practically, men of science, humanitarians,
statesmen, politicians, political economists, and even literary men,
lose sight of the one great object for which man is born into this
world, and leave him by implication, when not of set purpose,. to
his own self-sufficiency. Then the loss of the light of distinction
between the objective truth and the subjective man, which is the
radical weaknessof the modern infidel philosophies, has contributed
greatly to propagate the absurd notion that man is self-sufficient,
both for his thinking and his conduct. Yet the final end of man
is the first motive of his existence, and his progress towards that
end is the measure of his manhood, and the secret of his content
and happiness. Even on the ground of humanity, therefore, the
final end of man ought to be the prime regulator of his thought,
conduct, and affairs. For the discarding of final causes is the loss
of wisdom in thought and of prudence in action, and to treat man
as though he had no end beyond this world is to do the utmost
violence to his nature.

When a man grows querulous over his own imperfect nature, he
would do well to settle with himself, before he complains of his
Creator. Let him reflect how much truth he might have had, and
has not, because when offered to his knowledge he gave not to it
the attention of his mind and will. Let him reflect how much
good he might have had, and has it not, because, when the
occasion offered, he failed in courage and let it pass. Let him
examine and consider how far and how often he has failed to give
that wise and just direction to his will that was within his power
and not beyond his lights ; he may then obtain some notion of
those latent powers within him that he has let go to rust and
decay for the want of due exercise and discipline. If this examina-
tion shows him how much more perfect he might have been than
he is, let him not accuse God but his own will. After which he

WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT. 263

may take to his heart these words of Albert the Great : " Nothing
richer can be offered to God than a good will ; for the good will
is the originator of all good and is the mother of all virtues : who-
soever begins that good will has secured all the help he needs for
living well ". *

" Why are we not created in such a manner," asks St. Basil, " that
from our nature we should be unable to sin, and should not have
the power to do so though we willed it ?" And to this he answers :
" You do not think you have good servants when you are com-
pelled to chain them ; but you think them good when they do the
duties they owe you freely and with good will. Nor can God be
pleased with what is done on compulsion, but only with what is
done from virtue. But virtue cannot come of necessity, it must
come of free will, and this will is your own, and depends for its
exercise on yourself. He, therefore, who would complain of his
Maker for not making him so that he might not sin, must of
course prefer an unreasonable to a reasonable nature, and would
choose an immovable existence, incapable of better things, before
an existence that is free and capable of action." f

It is obvious that a creature made from nothing, and limited by
nature, cannot be made incapable of sin, unless made without
free will. This point has been fully treated in the lectures on
evil. But had we been created without free will, we could never
have subjected ourselves to God. We could not have made the
divine will our own. We could have made no generous offering
either of ourselves or of anything to God. We could have done
nothing to the glory of God, or towards our own perfection. We
could not have even used our reason, or have searched into any
truth. We should have been incapable of any virtue whatsoever.
As St. Basil intimates, we should have been fixed, immovable, passive,
and unchangeable, just as we were created. On the other hand,
were we not placed between good and evil, and with our will open
to both, we should lose the occasion for the exercise of the stronger
virtues that make us strong ; the prudence that guards against evil,
the vigour that resists temptation, the manifold toil of pursuing
good ; the fortitude that resists, the patience that endures, and the
magnanimity that rises above evil. We should know nothing of
that joy of self-sacrifice that gives splendour to the virtues. The

* Albertus Magnus, De Adhcercndo Deo, c. 11.

+ S. Basil, Horn. Quod Deus non est auctor malorum, c. 7.

264 W^y MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT.

virtues that strengthen the soul would not exist, and what virtues
still remained would languish and lose their vigour.

To be without a free will is to be without merit or deservings of
any kind, and to have nothing that deserves esteem or reward.
A will without freedom is not a will, a soul without a will is not a
soul, and a man without a soul is not a man. To be free in one's
will is to be the sovereign of one's self; and to have this intelli-
gent dominion over one's own actions is the proof of a spiritual
nature, and in this we resemble God. " God has honoured us,"
says Titus of Bozra, " by so making us in His image, that as
God is good in the freedom of His nature, we might honour
Him with the freedom of our will ; and that by abstaining from
sin, whilst capable of sinning, our free will might do honour to
virtue." *

The perfection of man begins with his sanctification, advances
with his greater sanctification, and is consummated in the beatific
vision of God. His advancement, therefore, in perfection is to
be looked for in the progress of his nature from nothingness to
God. " First that which is earthly, then that which is heavenly."
First the body, then the soul, then by divine condescension the
light and grace from Heaven, to raise the soul above herself, and
bring the mind and will into supernatural relations with God.
Then the mind enters into the light of God by faith, and the will
into the power of God by hope and love. And by religion the
will is subject to God, and worships Him in obedience to the
divine ordinances in which He has shown that He would be
worshipped, and receives the sacraments in which He wills that
we should receive His graces. And as light comes upon light, and
grace on grace, the faithful man advances from virtue to virtue,
perfecting his sanctification, and preparing himself for his final
union with God.

But if God were to make us perfect from the beginning of our
existence, what kind of a perfection would that be ? There would
be no virtue ; no co-operation in our own sanctification ; no
triumph over the powers of evil ; no mutual working of light and
free understanding; no corresponding action of grace and free
will ; no works of faith, love, and patience to be crowned with
beatitude ; no crowning of the moral good in which God crowns
the operations of His own gifts.

* Titus Bostren, Contra Manichaos, 1. ii.

WJIV MAN WAS NOT CREATED- PERFECT. 265

If we did not advance by sensible and marked degrees from
the animal to the rational, and from the rational to the spiritual
life, and thence again to higher degrees of spiritual good, we
should confound our own nature with the light and grace of God,
and the workings of grace with the workings of nature. We
should never distinguish between those supernatural and exu-
berant gifts of God and the feeble powers that belong to our
nature. We should claim the divine gifts as a part of our nature,
and thus fall into a most delusive egotism, as well as into a
terrible falsehood and injustice. We could not have that beautiful
humility which so much consists in the confession of the gifts of
God. For it is by being first without the divine gifts, and feeling
how poor and imperfect we are without them, and by then receiving
them, that we know with most practical knowledge what we are of
ourselves, and what with the grace of God. But we pass from
nature to the gifts of God by a way so visible, marked, and
distinct, that we must see unmistakably that nature comes by
birth, and grace from Heaven upon our nature, and can never
claim the gifts of grace as though they were the provisions of our
nature.

Again, as we are conscious of our free will, and conscious in
our experience that we are free to accept or to reject the help
of God, to co-operate or not to co-operate with the gifts of
grace, we are not in the same peril of confounding the divine
gifts with the powers of our nature, as we should be, were we
created perfect in nature and endowed with perfect grace at
one and the same instant. Thus we escape the danger of that
worst of errors, that error of inexpiable pride and injustice in
the confounding of the two, which caused the angels to fall from
God.

In the course of his voluminous works, and especially in that
against Julian the Pelagian, St. Augustine has put forth three
reasons why man in his mortal nature must be exposed to the
danger of sin. He first lays down the principle that God alone is
by nature immortal, quoting St. Paul, who teaches that He
" alone inhabiteth immortality," from which it follows that man
was never immortal by nature, but only in virtue of a divine gift.
God alone is absolutely pure and holy by nature, and therefore by
nature incapable of sin. " God cannot admit sin in Himself,
because He cannot abandon His own divine nature ; for there is

266 WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT.

nothing better than Himself to which He could adhere, and by the
abandoning of which he could sin." *

The second of the great Doctor's reasons has been anticipated,
but we will give its substance in confirmation of our own. As
every creature emerges from nothingness, and carries the seeds of
change within him, and as he therefore labours under his native
inconstancy and mutability, it is fitting that for a time his native
weakness should be felt and seen. For what we are born with,
and can claim as our own, is our nature, and we should not have
a just and faithful mind about our nature if we knew not by
experience what that nature is, and what, apart from the super-
natural help of God, we ourselves are. Without this experimental
knowledge of what we are by nature, where could we get that
truthful sense and right perception of what we are apart from God,
which furnishes us the ground for that fundamental virtue of
humility, by which we are made subject to God, and are capable
of receiving His gifts ?

But if the supernatural state of grace were given to man from
the moment of his existence, he would never have known what of
himself he is, because the state of grace would be inseparable from
the state of nature. The due order of things, therefore, required
that in our present state of existence nature should first appear
alone, and that afterwards we should rise to better things. Our
human nature is, therefore, so regulated, that it first appears in a
condition altogether distinct from that which it becomes after God
has sent upon us every good and perfect gift from heaven. But
had these gifts been given from the first, and given with such
power that we could not separate ourselves from God by sin, we
should have been so absorbed in God through His gifts, as never
to have known what by nature we are, nor from what poverty
weakness, and mutability God had raised us up. We should never
have known our native nothingness, or have been able to do justice
to all that God had done for us. And so St. Augustine concludes
his argument with these words : " Man could do no evil either
with his will or against his will, if it were not that he is made from
nothing, that is to say, were he not something less than God. But
the divine nature alone is unchangeable, because God alone is not
from nothing, but is eternal." f

• S. August., Opui Imperfect., contra yulianum, 1. v., c. 31.
t Ibid., 1. V. , c. 33.

JVJIY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT. 267

The third reason given by St. Augustine why man should begin
in an imperfect state and liable to sin is this : " As God is the per-
fect good, He envies no good whatever to His creatures. To all
He gives the good they have, whether it be the less, the greater, or
the greatest good. To Adam it was a great gift that he need not
have died, although he was able to cause his own death ; and to
all men it is a great gift to receive a will from God that is able to
avoid sin, even although it is able to commit sin. It is scarcely
necessary to enlarge upon the beauty and splendour of such a gift.
What an honour it is to man, that from the first he is put in a state
in which, although tempted to sin, and able to sin, he may still
abstain from sin, and so win for himself that better state of existence,
in which he can sin no more. What a privilege it is to be so
placed that, with God's help, he may become the author and
architect of his own unchangeable happiness, and by exercising
constancy in the midst of instability may purchase an estate of
eternal immutability." *

What a dignity it is for man to put his industrious will and
helping hand to second the work of God, and to work with God,
not in making the primary elements of his weak and rudimentary
nature, but in filling up that nature with good, and in forming
himself to spiritual beauty. Had God given him perfection from
the first, he would have had nothing of his own in that perfection.
" It is a great thing," concludes St. Augustine, " to be able not to
sin, but it is a far greater to be incapable of sin ; and it is justly
ordained that whilst that first state gives us the occasion for merit,
the last state should give us the reward of well-doing. . . . We
must rise from the merit of the less good to the reward of the
greater good." f

How firm must be the union of the soul with God, how strong
the gift of justice, how pure the sanctity, how absorbing the charity,
before the divine influence enters so deeply into our nature, and
so completely conquers the instability of the soul, that she shall no
longer be capable of sinning. But if this were our first condition,
where would be the trial ? Where the combat ? Where the
reward of patience ? Where the victor's crown ? It is such a
permanent state of sanctity, that nothing greater in a created being
could be thought of. But this full and secure felicity, to which

* S. August., Opus Imperfect., contra yulianum, 1. v., c. 58.

t Ibid., c. 61. See also Thomassini, Dogmata, 1. v., c. 13, De Incarnatione.

268 WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT.

nothing can be added, is won by trial, and is the reward of the
saints.

The Divine Wisdom teaches us, in Ecclesiasticus, that " all
things are made double, one against another, and God hath made
nothing defective. He hath established the good things of every
one. And who shall be filled with His glory ? " Of this correspond-
ing order of things, the most conspicuous example is that of the
heavens doubled against the earth, and shedding their beneficent
influences upon all that the earth contains. "The firmament on
high is His beauty, the beauty of Heaven with its glorious show.
The sun when he appeareth showing forth at his rising, an admir-
able instrument, the work of the Most High." A nearer example
of this double formation of things, one against another, is the
human body, each part of whose construction is doubled, one part
against the other; and in which the noble and commanding
members, the organs of mind and will, are placed superior, as
against the less noble and obediential members, which are placed
inferior.

When we enter our interior, we there find the superior soul
doubled against the inferior soul. As Aristotle expresses it in his
Politics : " There is implanted in the soul a double part, one that
commands, and one that obeys ". The superior is to the inferior
soul what the heavens are to the earth, for on the superior side is
the light of truth and justice, whilst on the inferior side are the
movements of sense and the animal instincts that press upon the
soul from below, whilst the will is the central power between the
two, making its free choice between the heavenly light above and
the earthly instinct beneath. In this doubling of the spiritual
against the carnal man, and in setting His light over our darkness,
God " hath established the good things of every one ". And the
question remains: " Who shall be filled with His glory?" To
which the answer comes : He who looks up to the light above,
and who takes hold on the heavenly grace, and who enters into the
strength of God. For nature has expressed this truth by the pen
of the pagan poet : " I see the better things, and approve them, but
I follow the worse ". And grace has expressed the same truth more
clearly by the pen of St. Paul : " The good which I will, I do not ".
And again : " I am delighted with the law of God according to the
inner man ; but I see another law in my members, fighting against
the law of my mind". Yet we may still adhere to the text of

WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT. 269

Ecclesiasticus : " God hath made nothing defective. He hath
established the good things of every one." He has put the light of
truth in our mind, like the heavens above the earth, and this light
is doubled over our weak and imperfect nature, that we may know
what to approve and what to condemn, in what way to advance,
and from what to recede, that we may not err from the path that
leads to our perfection. We see the better things above doubled
against the inferior things below, that we may reconcile the two,
by choosing the superior for our master and the inferior for our
servant. And as the weakness of our inferior nature is revealed to
us by the light placed like a sun in our superior nature, we have
the unfailing admonition to seek the strength we need from God,
who never fails those who seek His grace with all their heart.

In his " Advancement of Learning " Lord Bacon has expressed
the truth we are here treating in a quaint but forcible English
which commends itself to close thinkers. He says : " There
is found in every thing a double nature of good. . . . This
double nature of good, and the comparative thereof, is much more
engraven in man, if he degenerate not. . . . His approach or
assumption to divine or angelic nature is the perfection of his
form; the error or false imitation of which good is that which
is the tempest of human life, while man, upon the instinct of an
advancement formal and essential, is carried to seek advance-
ment local." Let those who boast themselves the followers of
the scientific method of Bacon, in which he was long before
anticipated by his great namesake the Franciscan friar of Oxford,
observe how, in the spirit of a true philosopher, he establishes the
formal, essential, and final end of man, and then measures his
human progress by his advancement to that end. To put what
he here says into modern language, there are two ideas or forms
of good before the human mind, that of ourself as a natural good
wanting completeness, and that of God as the form of divine or
perfect good. But until our imperfect nature approaches or is
taken up to the divine good, which is also the angelic good, we do
not receive the perfection of our form. But when a man misdirects
his instinct or appetite that points to this supreme or universal
good, and diverts that instinct or appetite to what is local, that
is, to what is of this earth, he commits the grave error of seeking
the universal good in a false direction, and encounters the
tempest of life, making no advancement meanwhile towards that

270 IV//Y MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT.

divine or angelic good which forms him to perfection. But the
le;fs a man has degenerated, the more he holds engraven in him
the comparative value of these two kinds of good, knowing
himself to be the lesser good whose form is incomplete, and that
God is the perfect good, and that when he is advanced or taken
up to God, his form obtains its perfection.

Should any one say that he wishes to abstain from evil, but that
he cannot do so, he ought to remember that after a man has been
long infected with disease he cannot be cured by wishing it.
An evil habit of long standing can only be got rid of by in-
troducing a greater good into the soul, that by its vital force the
evil may be expelled out of the system. If he will only seek
that greater good, it will be given him. Even the fear of being
caught and punished, as Titus of Bozra observes, when it gets
possession of a man, will conquer his cupidity and stay him
from evil-doing. And this itself shows that sin is not the growth
of nature, but a work of the affections. Let us all, therefore,
praise the laws that punish the guilty without making any
apology, and that confirm the common-sense of mankind, which
has no notion that men are driven by nature to crime, but is
convinced that they give themselves to crime of their own free
choice, and deserve their punishment.*

We now come to the masterly argument of St. Irenseus, that
disciple of the apostolic men, whose praise has flowed from the
pens of many fathers of the Church. Listen, then, to the sub-
stance of his teaching.

You ask why God could not have made man perfect from the
beginning ? You ought to know, then, that whatever is created
must be inferior to its Creator, and that what is not uncreated
must fall short of perfection. Being of recent date, they are in an
infantile condition. The mother could give strong meat to her
child, but the child is unable to receive it. And God might have
given perfection to man from his earliest existence, but being yet
an infant, he could not receive it. It was for a like reason that
our Lord came to us only in these latter times, summing up all
things in Himself, and not coming as He might have come, but
as we are able to behold Him. He might have come in His
immortal glory, but how could we have borne the weight of that
glory ? For this reason, although He was the perfect bread of

* Titus Bostren, Adversus ManicfuBos, I. ii.

IVBY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT. 271

the Father, He gave Himself to us as milk is given to infants,
that, being nourished at His breast, we might get accustomed to
this milk diet in partaking of the Word of God, and so become able
to receive the bread of immortality, which is the Spirit of the
Father. St. Paul had this in view when he said to the
Corinthians : " I gave you milk to drink, not meat, because you
were not yet able ". As if he had said to them : You have learnt
the Lord's coming as man, but because of your infirmity the
Spirit of the Lord does not yet rest upon you. As the Apostle
had the power of giving the Corinthians strong meat from the
beginning, God had the power of giving man perfection from the
beginning ; but man was only recently created, he could not
receive it, or, if he did receive it, be could not have dealt with it.
There was nothing impossible on God's part, the defect was in
the newly-created man.

God hath exhibited His power, wisdom, and goodness in one
united plan : His power in creating and constituting the things
that did not exist before ; His wisdom in adapting and fitting
them harmoniously into each other; and His unspeakable benignity
in giving them growth and prolonged existence, to reflect the glory
of the Uncreated One, the glory of God, who gives them good
without jealousy. For God is the cause of all things, and all
things are subject to God ; and as the glory of the Uncreated
One is incorruptible, to be subject to God is the preservation of
incorruption. It is through this order, harmony, and divine
guidance of things that man is man, and is constituted to the
image and likeness of God. The Father planned all things well,
and gave the command ; the Son executed the command and
framed the work ; the Holy Spirit nourishes and gives increase to
that which is made. But man is advanced to what is perfect by
little and little, and is thus advanced by being brought nearer to
the Uncreated One. It was necessary that he be first created ;
that after being created, he receive growth ; that after receiving
growth, he be strengthened ; that after he is strengthened, he
be multiplied ; that after he is rriultiplied, he be recovered from
his disorder; that after he is recovered from his disorder, he
be glorified ; and that in being glorified, he see the Lord God.
For God remains yet to be seen, and the vision of God is the
Cause of incorruption, and " incorruption bringeth near to God ".

It is unreasonable, therefore, to ascribe our infirmity to God,

272 WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT

instead of waiting for our growth. He who does this neither
knows God nor himself ; he is as unsatiable as he is ungrateful,
and it is through excess of passion that he is unwilling to be what
God has made him. Flying beyond the law of his nature, he
would wish to be like God his Creator even before he has become
a man. The dumb beasts make no complaint that they are not
men, they are thankful for their condition as it is ; but men are
more unreasonable, they complain of God that He makes them
men first that they may be made gods hereafter, instead of being
made gods all at once. Yet how can they charge their Creator
with grudging and envy, when He tells them even now : " I have
said: Ye are gods, and all sons of the Most High". And then He
says to us, who are still incapable of bearing the power of His
Divinity : " But nevertheless ye shall die as men ". In this
manner does the Almighty set forth His own benignity and our
infirmity, whilst He intimates at the same time that we are left in
our own power. For in His benignity He has already given good
to us, and given it to us in such a way that we may be like Him in
the very fact of being in our own power. But in His foresight
He knows our weakness, and what befalls us through our weakness,
and has therefore reserved to His own love and power the gift to
enable us to overcome our frailty.

It was needful, then, for us that nature should make its appear-
ance first, and that afterwards what is corruptible should be
absorbed in incorruption, and what is mortal in immortality ; and
it is for the sake of this exceeding good that man is made in the
image of God, that he may be transferred to His likeness, and
may receive the knowledge of good and evil. Our good in this
world is to believe God, to obey Him, and to keep His com-
mandments ; this is the cause of our life. Our evil is to disobey
God ; this is the cause of our death. God therefore gave us a
large mental light, that with its help we may know the good of
obedience and the evil of disobedience, and that having expe-
rienced both of them, we may come to the making of a wise
choice, and may not through our indolence be neglectors of His
commands. For we have much firmer and more certain know-
ledge of what has passed through our experience than of what we
only know by conjecture and surmise ; and were we left in
ignorance of evil, how could we obtain the discipline of good ?
The experience of evil as well as of good begets a firmer deter-

WlfY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT 273

mination to keep the good of life by obeying God, and to shun
the evil of death that comes of disobedience. But if we are thought-
less enough to neglect the two kinds of knowledge that come of
this double experience, we unconsciously kill the man within us.

How can you be a god before you are completed as a man ?
Or how can you expect to be perfect having come so recently into
existence ? How can you be immortal, after failing in your mortal
nature to obey your Creator ? It is not you who make God, but
God who makes you ; and until you have been faithful to your
state of man, God will not give you His glory. As you are of
God's making, and as your creation is still going on, you must
wait patiently for the hand of your Maker, who will supply what is
wanting in due course of time. Give your heart to Him in a soft
and pliable condition, like the clay in the potter's hands ; for if
you become hard, you will not be able to receive the impression
of His plastic ■ fingers. Keep that form into which the Divine
Artist moulds you, for by retaining the form that God may please
to give you, you rise into perfection. Depend upon it that, as
the Divine Workman moulds you into a better design, He will
conceal your clay with silver and gold, and will adorn you with
such perfection that the King will desire your beauty. But if you
are stiff and unyielding, you repel the hand of the Divine Artist,
you prove yourself ungrateful to His noble design, and will lose
the divine art that would form you, and the divine workmanship
that would perfect you, and lose your own life as well. For whilst
it depends on the divine goodness to make us perfect, it depends
on our own submissiveness whether we will be made perfect ; so
that only on the condition of our delivering ourselves with sub-
missive confidence into His hands shall we receive His divine
workmanship in return, and so become His perfect work.

As God is able to raise up children to Abraham from the very
stones, there is no want of power or skill on His part ; but if,
instead of trusting yourself to Him, you will fly from His hands,
you are yourself the cause of your imperfect condition ; it is you
who will neither let your God perfect you, nor work with Him
that you may be perfected. Although a man may blind himself,
he cannot destroy the light, which remains ever as before.
He may avoid the light by going into the dark, because no one
is compelled to accept His illumination whether he will or
not. God compels no one to accept His skill to make him

274 WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT

perfect against his own will. There is no question but that men
are in their own power ; but when they use their freedom to
withdraw from their Father's light, they trangress the law of
liberty, and lose the better things through their own fault.

As God foresees and provides all things, He has prepared
suitable dwellings as well for those who love His light as for
those who fly from His light. For those who with love thirst for
His light, in His benignity He has prepared an incorruptible
light ; but for those who despise His light, who fly from its
approach, and choose to blind themselves in darkness, He has
prepared such mansions of darkness as befit the enemies of light,
and such a subjection to punishment as befits them who will not
be subject to Him. To be subject to God is everlasting rest ;
but they that fly from light and peace, and refuse God's rest, will
find a dwelling prepared for their restless condition, which is
devoid of that light and peace from which they so willingly fly.
It is they who, by abandoning God, defraud themselves of the
good that is only to be found in God ; and it is they who, by
abandoning peace and rest, bring themselves into fellowship with
pain. By their abandonment of light, they justly dwell in dark-
ness. By choosing to withhold themselves from God's eternal
light, which has in it the promise of eternal good, they are them-
selves the unhappy cause of receiving their dwelling in that ever-
lasting darkness which is empty of all good.

This, then, is the great plan of God's divine economy, that
man should pass through all things, and be tried in all, and have
the experience of moral conduct before he comes to the resurrec-
tion from the dead. And after his experience has taught him
who has delivered him, and from what he has been delivered,
he will then be everlastingly grateful to God, and will greatly
love Him ; for as the Scripture says : " To whom much is forgiven,
he greatly loveth ".

He also learns by experience to know himself, and to under-
stand how weak and mortal he is. He learns likewise by
experience to know God, to know His goodness, mightiness, and
immortality, since He gives immortality to that which is by
nature mortal, and eternity to that which is by its natural
constitution temporal. He also learns to know by experience
the attributes of God, as in His exercise of them He reveals His
greatness : for God is the glory of man, but man is the recipient

WHY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT 275

of those providential operations that make known to him the
wisdom, power, and mercy of God. As the physician makes his
qualifications known by healing his patients, God makes his
attributes known by healing man and giving him perfection.
St. Paul has touched upon this profound reason of the divine
economy where he says: "God hath included all in unbelief,
that He may have mercy on all ".

Man has only to abide in the love of God with subjection and
gratitude, and He will receive from God the power to make
progress, and to reach His glorious end, by becoming like to Him
who died for him. It was for this very purpose that God the
Word was made like to sinful flesh, that He might condemn sin
in the flesh, and cast it out, and call upon men to imitate His
example. He laid His Father's law upon them, and called on
them to imitate God by observing that law, that in becoming
like to Him they might deserve to see Him. He was made
man, and dwelt in man, that whilst obeying His Father's will he
might accustom man to receive God, and accustom God to dwell
in man.*

It is a useful danger, observes Titus of Bozra, even if it were
not a necessary danger, that we should not be created absolutely
good, but exposed at first to evil, for otherwise we should be
wholly defeated of good. The man is good who is just and
temperate, but he is just by abstaining from injustice, and
temperate by abstaining from intemperance. What virtues could
he carry to Heaven if he had nothing to contend for, and nothing
to contend against ?

If a man had been put to no trial between good and evil, the
grand work of God's fatherly providence would never have brought
His paternal attributes to all hearts ; nor would His wonderful
condescension have been known to His human children. That
infinite patience with His creatures, and that long forbearance
with the ungrateful, would not have glorified our Heavenly Father,
have filled the angels and the just with wonder, and the penitent
with consolation and astonishment. The untiring bounty and
care of our Heavenly Father's providence, as it is exercised over
His enemies as well as His friends, that "maketh His sun to
rise upon the good and the bad, and raineth upon the just and
the unjust," would not have filled Heaven and earth with amaze-

* S. Irenaeus, Adversus Hareses, 1. iv., c. 38-9 ; 1. iii., c. 20.

276 WIfV MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT.

ment at His goodness. Had we not been exposed to evil as well
as good, the mercy of God that pursues the sinner with remorse,
that turns sin into bitterness, that follows the sinner with yearning
compassion, that is ever ready with life and healing to restore
him to pardon and friendship, would not have revealed to
His creatures the unspeakable tenderness of God. The divine
power would not have come forth in all its magnificence, with
love for its motive and wisdom for its guide, to draw good
with incredible abundance out of evil. Nor would the divine
generosity have been displayed to His intelligent creatures in the
truly God-like exercise of lifting up the lowly and the fallen,
"raising up the needy from the dust, and the poor from the
dunghill, to make them sit with princes, even with the princes
of His people". What, in short, should we have ever known
of the fatherly attributes of our God, that reveal the profound
things of His heart, that inexhaustible goodness, that uncon-
querable patience, that infinite mercy, and unspeakable tender-
ness of love, had we never known weakness or evil ?

Were it possible, notwithstanding our free will and our origin
from nothingness, and had it been so ordained, that we should be
created incapable of sinning, our human nature would never have
been raised from a depth so low to a height so divine, by its
personal union with God in the incarnation of His Eternal Word
for our redemption. Through that unspeakable union of God
with man, we have obtained a Divine Head to the whole human
race, for our greater union with God through the right of the Divine
Humanity, and such an abundance of every kind of grace suited
to our human condition, as we could never have hoped for, except
at the fearful cost of the sacrifice of Christ the Son of God.
Again, if man had not been placed between good and evil, he
would have had no history, as he could have made no progress.
And what does this signify? That there would be no eternal
remembrance for the heavens of that wonderful and most ample
course of God's dealings with men through the ages, or of man's
continual combat with evil, and of his deliverance from evil to
good. The Prophets, the Law, the Gospel, would not have been.
The Apostles, the Martyrs, the Fathers, the Saints, all perfected
through suffering, would not have been under divine direction, the
successive illuminators of the world, and the wonder-workers of
God's wisdom and power. The solemn rite of sacrifice would not

IVBY MA AT WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT. 277

have worshipped God in the former ages, foreshadowing the
Cross, and keeping up men's hopes and trust in a Divine
Deliverer. Nor should we have seen God in our nature, in
human habit like our own, walking before us in example, bearing
our sins and sorrows, enlightening us with heavenly truth in a
human way, and giving us assurance that by following Him we come
to God, and even to the mountain of His vision. We should never
have had that sublime and awful demonstration of God's justice,
or that crowning proof of His inexhaustible love, in the sacrifice
of His Son upon the Cross, for the remission of our sins, which
shall be sung as the hymn of the glorified throughout eternity.
Nor should we have known the exceeding humility and charity of
the Son of God, whose spirit flows in grace to heal the wounds of
fallen humanity.

Before the question is asked, why God did not make man
perfect and sinless from the first, it must be remembered that we
are speaking of God's earthly dispensation ; and that for reasons
profound beyond our search, as well as for reasons made known
to us, it was the eternal plan to have a great earthly dispensation,
with a wonderful exercise of the divine power, wisdom, mercy,
and goodness ; and that the greater the difficulties arising from
the weak elements of this creation, all the more grand and
glorious is the divine triumph in raising up such a vast amount
of everlasting good from elements so weak and from wills so
unstable.

It should also be remembered that, if we had never known our
weakness, we should never have known what strength we receive
from God to accomplish our union with Him. Had we never
been liable to sin, we should never have been taken from the
stock of Adam to be engrafted on the divine humanity of Christ.
Had we been without free will, we should have been incapable of
love and incapable of devotedness. Just think of a blessedness
in which you could not love, or be grateful, or be generous. Just
think of a blessedness in which you could not freely give yourselves
as children to the father of your blessedness. Had we been
created perfect without our will and co-operation, it would have
been rather a passive than an active perfection, more like that of
a material than of a free and spiritual nature. Had we been
created in Heaven rather than on earth, we must have been
creatures of another kind. And had we been there made perfect

2 78 M^HY MAN WAS NOT CREATED PERFECT.

at once, we could never have known our nature, and what it
is in itself, as apart from the divine gifts by which it is
perfected. The angels, therefore, were placed on trial and left
capable of sin, before they were perfected.

Had we not been tried and found wanting, until the inmost
core of our nature was searched through with divine light and
grace, the deepest grounds for that profound and sweet humility,
which is the soul's inmost expression of truthful sincerity, justice,
and right dependence, would not be there to make her virtue most
pleasing to God. Those highest motives of gratitude for the
deliverance from evil would be wanting to the soul ; and, finally,
the overpowering argument to superabounding love, arising from
the contrast between all that God has pardoned in the past, and
all the beatitude He gives in the everlasting present, would not be
there to perfect the ardour of grateful love. For " to whom less
is forgiven, he loveth less".

LECTURE XL

THE FALL OF MAN IN CONNECTION WITH THE FALL OF
THE ANGELS AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST.

"As in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive." —
I Corinthians xv. 22.

IF there be an absurd way of denying accepted truth, it must
be that of withholding the mind from the evidence. Yet
this is the ordinary course followed by what are called free-
thinkers in religion. Like all the most evident things, religion
is her own witness, and carries her own credentials ; proves how
well she is fitted to the deepest requirements of human nature,
and explains that nature as nothing else can do. But the free-
thinker first withdraws his mind and heart from religion, and
then undertakes to settle the cause of religion in her absence.
So far, however, is this mode of proceeding from simplifying the
condition of human life, or from removing its perplexities, that it
only augments them a thousandfold, whilst it leaves nothing what-
ever explained. For when a man rejects the revelation of God,
and refuses to believe his descent and inheritance from the fallen
Adam, he finds nothing so hard to explain as the condition of
humanity, and his own position, in this mysterious world.

The common refuge of theory-makers is to assume that man is
descended from primitive ancestors that were rude, brutal, and
but little removed from animal life, and that he has developed
with time into an intellectual and moral perfection as the result of
progressive civilization. But however plausible this theory may
look to the mere rational man at first sight, and when taken
apart from the history of his race, it will not bear a close inspec-
tion. An effect cannot be greater than its cause. The brutal

28o THE FALL OF MAN

man could not produce the intellectual and moral man from a
mere change of external circumstances ; he must have within him
the light of intellectual and moral principles. If these principles
and powers are not already within him, they must have been
subsequently implanted by some great intellectual and moral
cause, which would be equivalent to a new creation.

The theory of human advancement from an inhuman condi-
tion is contradicted by the whole tradition of the human race,
which has brought everywhere the remembrance of a primaeval
state of innocence and happiness from which man has fallen.
And to this external tradition must be added the internal con-
sciousness of man, bearing witness to the historic fact, and
making him sensible to the very centre of his nature that he is
not what he was created, but has undergone some sad and calami-
tous deterioration. When faith, therefore, comes to teach us the
history of our fall, we at once find the solution of the riddle of
human life, and the manifest reply to many anxious questionings
of the soul.

The proofs of the fall are everywhere to the mind that looks
for them. We see them in the condition of man, and in the con-
dition of the world ; we hear them in the voice of humanity, in
the testimonies of history and the revelations of God. Those,
however, who measure the state and progress of man by inap-
plicable tests are sure to go wrong. The true test of human pro-
gress is not to be found in accumulated property, nor in the
knowledge of sublunary things, nor in social polish, but in the
advancement of man towards his Supreme Good, towards which a
simple and unpretentious mode of life, resting mainly on the pro-
vidence of God, is the most favourable. The savage represents
not the primitive life of man, but the corruption of that life. If,
on the other hand, we examine the early civilizations as repre-
sented in the founding of cities, we find them taking their rise
from the atrocious conquests of ambitious chiefs, who hunt their
fellow-men, seize upon their possessions, and reduce them to a
life of miserable slavery. Even the polished Greeks and imperial
Romans based their civilization on no better foundation. Then
the city itself and its founders became the object of men's worship
in place of God. Every great and complicated civilization, when
it is not strongly imbued and tempered with the principles of
Christian faith, gives rise to a vast amount of mental and moral

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIS2\ 281

corruption, and by the unequal distribution of the goods of this
life occasions a mass of misery beyond the power of the State to
remedy. It is difficult, therefore, and even impossible, to think
that mere human civilization can be the chief cause of human
perfection and happiness.

If we look to the dawn of history, we find a race of men leading
a simple pastoral life in their families, having few material wants,
conversing with God and worshipping Him in simplicity of heart.
The scope of their mind is turned more to heavenly than to earthly
things. These are the descendants of Seth and Enos, and they
are called " the sons of God ". We see another race who build
cities, of course by the usual expedients of conquest and slavery.
They forge metals into weapons of war, and invent musical instru-
ments, probably for idolatrous worship as well as war. These are
the descendants of Cain, and they are called the children of men.
From this first civilization came the first great corruption of human
life. But after the sons of God formed alliances with the daughters
of men, after the godly race had united with the ungodly race and
shared in their corrupt civilization, the whole human family cor-
rupted its way, and then came the deluge of water to sweep out
the deluge of iniquity.

However great, then, may be the value of a true civilization,
and however it may be in the order of Divine Providence, it is
undeniable that the world has seen a vast amount of false civiliza-
tion, resulting in the most calamitous corruption of human nature.
To measure the well-being of man by the standard of civilization,
as it consists in crowded populations, in accumulation of wealth,
in artificial modes and fashions of life, in the unceasing toil of the
multitude, in the ease and leisure of the few, and in the ambition
of all to rise above their neighbours in show and social status,
is to utterly mistake the nature of man, and the elements that
constitute his happiness. It is not in the crowded ways of human
life that a man strengthens, feeds, and elevates his mind, and gives
vigour and tone to his moral character, but in the retirement of
domestic life, or in the retreats of solitude. And he spoke wisely
and well who said : *' I never retire from among men without
finding myself less a man ". The one question decisive of human
happiness is whether a man most seeks God or himself; for there
is but one fundamental law of human progress and perfection, and
that is the progress of the man towards his Supreme Good and

282 THE FALL OF MAN

final end ; and to this principle all the cares and concerns of this
life are subordinate.

From this principle it necessarily follows that a people who
live by faith and make their religion the first object of their life,
will never exhibit to the eyes of worldly men as great an
appearance of worldly prosperity as they who make this world their
first object and God but a secondary consideration. They have
much less of this world's ambition ; they are not eager for display
whether of their bodily or mental good ; they are not always on
the stretch after this world's goods ; they make not their life an
unbroken toil after money or distinction, as if this were the one
virtue of human nature. They are more blessed, nevertheless, in
the material goods that they know they have received from God,
because they have fewer wants, and use their temporal goods with
temperance and moderation, and are free in giving for the love of
God, which is a great joy of life. In the eye of wisdom the true
test of social economy dnd the just standard of civilization do not
consist in the amount of wealth and the spread of ideas possessed
by society at large, however distributed, but in the way in which
such circumstances affect the souls of men in their individual
capacity, as they are persons created for God, and not merely as
they are members of a human commonwealth, where one con-
tributes mind and a sense of superiority, and a hundred contribute
unwearied toil and the sense of inferiority.

To return from this digression, a great proof of the fall of man
shines forth from the first dawn of history, in the expectation
entertained by man of a Divine Deliverer, and in the vicarious
sacrifices in which the belief and hope of that Deliverer is expressed.
It is difficult to imagine how this mode of worshipping God could
have arisen and spread through the world without an adequate
cause. It is impossible to suppose that this universal practice of
propitiatory sacrifices, spread everywhere with the human race,
from their earliest remembrances until they reach the sacrifice of
Redemption, could have originated with mankind unless there
had been an original commandment from God, to which the sense
of his fallen condition and of the want of a divine deliverance
led man to correspond. We find a line of prophetic men from
the earliest period of human life, who keep up the teaching of the
one true God and of the promised Deliverer, until that line centres
in a prophetic family, and that family grows into a prophetic

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST 283

nation. The history of that nation becomes famous in the world,
and its records are filled with the actions of God as the governor
and guide of that people. They are constantly suffering for their
infidelity to the voice of God, yet they record their own guiltiness,
and never cease from offering sacrifices in hope of their Divine
Deliverer, who shall free the whole world from evil. The more
they sin, the more they disobey, the more they reveal the weak-
ness of human nature, the more loud and strenuous becomes the
voice of their prophets, portraying the whole character of that
Divine Deliverer, even to the minutest particulars, with all the
harrowing circumstances of His sufferings and death. The very
prophets themselves are the vivid figures in their own persons of
His life and sufferings. And whilst this prophetic nation exhibits
a light to the whole world, which the world is slow to perceive,
even amid the grossest corruptions of paganism, three funda-
mental truths, however much abused, are still discernible among
the nations at large : that man has fallen from a primitive state
of happiness ; that the Divinity is to be propitiated by vicarious
sacrifices ; and that man is in want of a Divine Deliverer. Hence,
though they lost sight of the true God, they still feigned to them-
selves some God or other, born of a woman, whom they invoked
as the helper and deliverer of man. And upon these three
fundamental ideas, which seemed to be inherent in man, when
purged of all their errors and superstitions, Christianity was grafted.
St, Paul appealed to what Tertullian calls this natural Christianity
of the human soul, when he preached the unknown God to the
Athenians.

There is nothing isolated in the universe. Between Heaven
and earth there is a perpetual correspondence. All things that are
like are drawn towards each other by the attraction of their like-
ness. There are many relations established between the things
above and the things beneath, which are the most clearly seen by
the purest minds. The two great divisions of created intelligences,
notwithstanding the great difference of their constitution, have
many things in common. They have one Creator, Lord, and
Father ; they have one and the same Divine Illuminator of their
intelligence ; they have one and the same principle of their per-
fection in the grace of the Holy Spirit. They have the likeness of
God in common ; and the spiritual virtues in common ; and their
chief interests in common. The supreme good of angels and of

284 THE FALL OF MAN

men is one and the same ; and as they were created to meet in one
common good, and in one eternal society with God, they have a
mutual interest in each other, and in proportion to their goodness
are attracted towards each other.

As the first and brightest of intelligent creations, the angels are
called in the Book of Job the " morning stars " and " the sons of
God". When the foundations of the earth were laid for the
habitation of mankind, we are divinely told that " the morning
stars sang together, and the sons of God made a joyful melody ".
To the angelic hosts the creation of man was a great and joyful
event ; for it brought them brethren in a new sphere of intelligent
life, and opened to them a ministry of charity to those brethren
in the day of their trial, and a most honourable service. For, as
St. Paul tells us, "they are all ministering spirits, sent to minister
to them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation ". This is
ever the divine way, that God should show His royal generosity
and absence of all jealousy, by ennobling His creatures, in giving
them high offices and ministries, so that those who are superior may
enlighten, protect, and serve those of their brethren who are still
inferior in place and weak in good. Having passed their own
probation and reached their final good, they receive this additional
honour, happiness, and likeness to God, that they are made the
ministers of God to men, to be a charitable help to those who are
striving to obtain their final end. If we take the Concordance in
hand, and turn to the word Angel, you will find that from the be-
ginning to the end of the Scriptures the ministry of angels to men
is recorded in more than three hundred places. If you scan the
mythologies of the Gentiles with an intelligent view to their
first origin, it is difficult to resist the conclusion, that they originated
in the corruption of the earlier belief in the ministry of angels.
The very strifes between the inferior gods, and the revolutions in
the heavens, which those mythologies celebrate, are but
the clouded and perverted reminiscence of the conflict of the
good and evil angels, and the fall of the latter from their
principalities.

God is not far from each one of us, nor the ministering angels,
who are with God. St. Paul, therefore, teaches the Hebrews :
*' You are come to Mount Sion and to the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem, and to the company of many thousands
of angels, and to the church of the first-born, who are written in

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST. 285

Heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the just
made perfect ".

The angels were created in a place of probation to which the
Scriptures give the name of Heaven, although it was not the
Heaven of beatitude, where they lived by faith and contemplation,
until, having stood their trial, they passed to the eternal vision of
God. Pure spirits, they received excelling gifts, above their
nature, and by their fidelity they perfected their love. The
Eternal Word was their illuminator, and therefore their mediator,
and the Holy Spirit was by His gifts of grace their sanctifier and
their perfecter. But, like ourselves, they were made from nothing,
and were consequently by nature weak and changeable. Their
nature was weak, though their gifts were strong ; let them once
lose their humility, and the more noble their gifts, the greater the
peril of their appropriating as their own what they have divinely
received from God, and so falling from God through the vice of
pride, and the descent from justice.

As it is the office of the higher intelligences among men to
enlighten, guide, and influence those who are endowed with less
intelligence, so is it the office of the higher orders of angelic
intelligences to illuminate the lower orders with their superior light
and influence. Now Lucifer was one of the noblest and most
highly endowed among the angelic hosts, who like some great
heresiarch drew a third of the angels into his apostasy from God.
Revolting in their pride as pure spirits from the Divine Author
of their good ; acting from no corporal weakness, and under no
influence from an external tempter, these angels greatly sinned
against so great a light, and with so great a pride, that their fall
was irreparable. There is no redemption for them, and St. Paul
assures us that Jesus "nowhere takes hold of the angels, but of
the seed of Abraham He taketh hold".

The great mystery of Redemption from sin, and of a new
Headship to the creation, was preordained in favour of the human
race, and this most amazing of all mysteries was partly revealed to
the angels during their probation, as a test of their faith and
humility ; and by their faith in this mystery, or their revolt from
its revelation, the angels stood in the truth or fell. But this
requires a larger explanation.

How magnificent were the endowments of those angels before
their fall, and how terrible the pride through which they fell, may

286 THE FALL OF MAN

be gathered from the prophet Ezechiel, where he describes the
fall of their leader as a type of the fall of the king of Tyre. " Thou
wast the seal of resemblance, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
Thou wast the pleasure of the paradise of God : every precious
stone was thy covering. . . . Thou wast a cherub stretching out
thy wings, and covering, and I set thee in the holy mountain of
God. Thou hast walked in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou
wast perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation, until
iniquity was found in thee. . . . And I cast thee out from the
mountain of God, and destroyed thee, O covering cherub, out of
the midst of the stones of fire. And thy heart was lifted up in
thy beauty : and thou hast lost thy wisdom in thy beauty, I have
cast thee to the ground." The height of ambition to which
Lucifer aspired in his pride is more fully described by the prophet
Isaias, where he is put forward as the type of the king of Babylon.
" How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, who didst rise in
the morning ! How art thou fallen to the earth, that didst wound
the nations ! And thou saidst in thy heart, I will ascend into
Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit
in the mountain of the Covenant, in the sides of the North, I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like to the Most
High. But yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, into the
depth of the pit."

This description points to an ambition on the part of Lucifer
to take the headship of creation, and of the Covenant, in place of
the Son of God. It is an intimation that the pride of the great
cherub rose to its intolerable pitch of insolence through jealousy
of the predestined Incarnation of the Son of God, and through
the defeat of an ambition to take the headship of the creation.
St. Paul is frequent in urging the truth, that although the angels
were appointed to minister to men in what concerns their salvation,
yet they are not the saviours of men. " To which," he asks, " of
the angels hath God said, at any time : Thou art my son, to-day
have I begotten thee. And again, when He bringeth the first-
begotten into the world, He saith : And let all the angels of God
adore Him." Here is a plain indication that when the Incarna-
tion was revealed to the angels, they were commanded to adore
the Son of God in the form of man. Again, the Apostle asks :
" To which of the angels said He at any time : Sit thou at My
right hand, until I make thy enemies My footstool?" And he

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST 287

shows that God would not subject the world to the angels, and
so give them the headship ; but that in Jesus Christ He lifted up
man to a condition above the angels, through His death putting
all things under His feet, '* destroying the empire of death, that
is to say, the devil ". For " He nowhere layeth hold of the
angels, but of the seed of Abraham He layeth hold ".

If we unite this doctrine of St. Paul with the description of
the fall of Lucifer by Isaias, the conclusion rises to the strongest
probability that there was some mysterious ambition and jealousy
among the proud angels respecting the Incarnation, and some
mysterious rejection of them in connection with that mystery.
This is fully brought out by St. John in the Apocalypse, where
the vision depicts the fall of Satan and his angels as the type of
Antichrist and his followers. In that most wonderful book the
Incarnate Word of God is the central figure. He is the Alpha
and Omega, the beginning and the end of all things. We are
made to see the whole course of the angelic history, as well as of
our human history, ending in good or evil, according as angels
or men conduct themselves towards the mystery of human
redemption. There the influence of the angels, both good and
evil, upon the destinies of mankind are clearly shown. There
we behold that mystery of the Divine Incarnation as the begin-
ning, the middle, and the end of all things. There we see the
great patience of God in the exercise of His providence, ruling all
things in view of the final exaltation of the just with His Incar-
nate Son, and of the final overthrow of His adversaries with their
chief instigator, Satan. The Apocalypse is the prophecy of pro-
phecies, unlocking the final sense of all preceding prophets, and
drawing from the conflict of the good and evil angels in Heaven,
on account of the first revelation of the predestined Incarnation,
the type of the conflict on earth between faith and infidelity,
between the Church and the unbelieving world, as they respect
that mystery accomplished. Such is the character of all prophecy.
One person is put as the type of another, one group of events
becomes the type of another, where the principle of the conflict
continues the same. In the Apocalypse the Mother of Christ is
put forth as the type of the Church, which is the mother of the
faithful ; and as Mary is the spouse of the Holy Ghost, so the
Church is the spouse of Christ. And Satan is put forth with pro-
found significance as the type of Antichrist. The conflict of the

288 THE FALL OF MAN

good and evil angels, resulting from the vision of the Son of God
as the Son of the glorified woman, is more than a type of the
conflict between the societies of faith and infidelity on earth, for-
asmuch as the good and evil angels are seen to take their sides
and actually join in the conflict between good and evil, even to
the consummation of all things.

"And the temple of God was seen in Heaven," writes
St. John, ** and the ark of the testatment was seen in the temple."
Christ is the testament ; Mary is the ark of the testament. As
St. John of Damscus says : " She is the animated ark of the living
God ". "And a great sign appeared in Heaven, a woman clothed
with the sun, and the moon beneath her feet, and on her head a
crown of twelve stars : and being with child, she cried out travail-
ing in birth, and was in pain to be delivered. And there was
seen another sign in Heaven : and behold a great dragon having
seven heads and ten horns; and on his head seven diadems.
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of Heaven, and cast
them to the earth : and the dragon stood before the woman who
was ready to be delivered : that, when she should be delivered,
he might devour her Son. And she brought forth a man child,
who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron : and her Son was
taken up to God, and to His throne."

This great dragon is afterwards called " that old serpent, who is
called the devil, who seduceth the whole world ". The first of the
two great signs in Heaven is the glorified Mother of God Incarnate
in our humanity, for her Son is taken up to God, and to His throne,
and none but God can sit upon the throne of God. But, as a
type of the Church, a part of this description refers to the suffer-
ings through which the children of the Church are brought to
God. The other sign, the great dragon lying in wait to
destroy the Child after His birth is Satan, the type of Antichrist,
as he is his instigator. This type was first fulfilled in Herod, who
sought the death of the Child, from whom he was saved by
the flight of the woman through the desert into Egypt. Both
St. Peter and St. Paul speak of the Divine Incarnation as pre-
destined before all ages and all creation. St. Paul applies to it
the words of the Psalm : "Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldest
not ; but Thou hast fitted a body to Me. Behold I come; in the
head of the book it is written of Me, that I should do Thy
will, O God." St. Peter speaks of "the precious blood of Christ

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST 289

as of a lamb without spot, foreknown, indeed, before the consti-
tution of the world, but manifested in the last times ". St. Paul
says again: "We have redemption through His blood, who is
the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature " ;
whilst in the Apocalypse Christ is called " the beginning of the
creation of God ''.

What, then, is more probable than that when the angels were
tried in faith, and their humility tested, they received the reve-
lation of the future incarnation of the Word of God, through
whom they themselves were both created and illuminated, and
who, "being made so much better than the angels, as He hath
inherited a more excellent name than they," yet was " made a
little lower than the angels," and, "for the sufferings of death,
crowned with glory and honour," whom the feather "hath set
over all His works, and hath subjected all things under His
feet ".

St. Paul intimates this trial of the angelic faith where he says :
" When He bringeth the first-begotten into the world. He saith.
And let all the angels of God adore Him ". This clearly points
to a command that the angels of God should worship the
Incarnate Son upon their very first introduction to the mystery.
That the name and mystery of Christ is intimately connected
with the fall of Satan our Lord Himself seems to intimate.
When the seventy-two disciples returned to Him with joy, saying,
" Lord, the devils also are subject to us in Thy name ; He said
to them : I saw Satan, like lightning, falling from Heaven ",

What, then, was the trial of the angels ? In what difficult truth
did the majority of their numbers stand steadfast, whilst a third
part of them stood not in the truth ? They were tried by faith
as we are tried. Were they tried by the self-same mystery of
faith by which the world is tried ? The angels knew the Eternal
Word of God as their Creator and Illuminator, and the vision of
St. John presents them as tried by the sign or vision of the birth
of a Divine Child from woman, who is taken up to the throne of
God ; after which there immediately springs a great conflict
between the good and evil angels : one side cleaving to God, and
the other rising in rebellion against God. This view of the
subject is confirmed in other parts of the Scriptures. St. Peter
tells us that the angels longed to look down into the deep mystery
of Redemption. And he tells us further, that the angels, powers,

19

290 THE FALL OF MAN

and virtues are made subject to Christ. But this longing to
penetrate the mystery indicates a knowledge begun in faith,
though not consummated in vision. And as the sublime and
awful mystery was revealed to men so long before its accomplish-
ment, why should it not have been revealed yet earlier to the
angels ?

The knowledge of the Divine Incarnation concerned them
intimately, and in more ways than as a trial of their faith and
submission. Christ was to sit in His humanity at the right hand
of the Father, to hold the primacy over the angels as well as over
men, and they were to be subject under His feet. When He
enters into' the world, all the angels of God are to adore Him.
" Making purgation of sins," says the Apostle, " He sitteth on the
right hand of the Majesty on high, being made so much better
than the angels, as He hath inherited a greater name than they."
Again : " At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of those
that are in Heaven, on earth, and under the earth " ; and once
more, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ " raising Him up from
the dead, setting Him on His right hand in the heavenly places,
above all principality, and power, and virtue, and dominion, and
every name that is named not only in this world, but also in that
which is to come. And He hath subjected all things under His
feet."

We already see what a great interest the angels have in the
mystery of the Incarnation. But this is not all. St. Paul teaches
that there was a renewal and re-establishment of all things in
Heaven as well as on earth, through the blood of Christ ; and
whilst he tells this to the Ephesians, he tells the Colossians that
it is the will of the Father, " through Him, to reconcile all things
to Himself, making peace through the blood of His Cross, both as
to the things on earth and the things in Heaven ". And let this
be remarked, that the fall of Satan and his angels from Heaven is
represented in the Apocalypse as immediately following the
opposition of Satan to the Child born of the woman; to the Child
that sits on the throne of God ; and that straight away after their
fall St John heard the exclamations of the angels who stood
faithful and firm in the truth : " Now is come salvation and
strength, and the kingdom of God, and the power of His Christ ".
From this it would seem obvious that the angels were saved
through their faith put on its trial, through the revelation of the

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST 291

Divine Incarnation, and through their humility in adoring God,
clothed in a form less noble than their own.

All this again tends to show what great interest the angels had
in the divine mystery of the Incarnation, and in the whole condition
of humanity. How the good angels could be saved through Christ,
though they had never fallen, is explained in the ancient Book on
the Divine Names, where the author says : " Would any one praise
that salvation whereby all things are protected from things that
are worse, we allow the praise of this first of all salvations, that
keeps things so steadfast and unchangeable as not to sink down
into evil. ... It is by no means beyond the scope of sacred
theology to praise this kind of salvation, that delivers any nature
from the loss of that good which accords with its kind. The
theologians, therefore, call this also by the name of redemption,
because it suffers not the creature to fall back towards nothing-
ness." * But this is the salvation of the angels, who by the power
of divine grace stood in the truth revealed to them, and kept
their innocence.

St. Ignatius the Martyr, therefore, says to the Smyrneans that,
" if the glorious angels and princes, whether visible or invisible,
believe not in the blood of Christ, it is to their condemnation". And
St. Jerome says in his comment on the Ephesians, that " the Son of
God descended into the lowest regions of the earth, and went up
above all the heavens, not only that He might fulfil the law and
the prophets, but that He might also execute certain hidden dis-
pensations which are only known to Himself and to the Father.
We know not after what manner the blood of Christ profited
the angels; but we know nevertheless that it did profit them."
St. Bernard asks in his exposition of the Canticles, how Christ could
be the redemption of the angels ? And he gives the answer in
these terms : " He who raised up man from his fall gave to the
angel who stood that he might not fall. Whilst He thus rescued
man from captivity, He protected the angel from captivity. In
that way He was equally a redemption to both, delivering the one
and preserving the other. It is thus made plain how Christ the
Lord was redemption to the holy angels, as He was their justice,
wisdom, and sanctification."

We may now return with greater light to the vision of St. John.
The part already quoted most certainly refers to the Divine Incar-
* De Divinis Nominibus, c. viii., n. 9,

«92 THE FALL OF MAN

nation, and to Satan as the adversary of that wonderful mystery; and
these scenes in Heaven are typical of the perpetual combat between
Christ in His Church and Satan in the world. St. Methodius says
that this was a belief in the Church, and St. Augustine tells his
people that they knew it to be so. This vision of the Incarnation
of the Son of God is also a direct blow at the Corinthians and the
Ebionites, the sects denying the Incarnation against whom St. John
wrote his Gospel. The rod of iron with which the Divine Child was
to rule the nations is the attribute of Christ both in the second
Psalm and in an earlier part of the Apocalypse.

No sooner is^atan defeated of his aim, and the Child taken up
to God and His throne, than " there was a great battle in heaven.
Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon
fought and his angels, and that great dragon was cast out, that old
serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole
world : and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown
down with him." This is a literal description of the fall of the
angels, following immediately upon the revelation of the woman
giving birth to the Child who ascends to the throne of God. The
conflict between spiritual intelligences is of course a conflict with
spiritual weapons : the angels that stood firm contended with faith,
with humility, and with submission to the great revelation of the
Incarnate Word ; whilst the unfaithful angels fought against God
and His angels with their pride and rebellion ; and not standing
in the truth, they fell and were cast out. The Archangel who led
the faithful angels took up the word Michael for his crj', that is to
say : Who is like to God ? and it became his designation. The
leader of the rebellious hosts received the name of Satan, which
means the adversary, and this became his designation.*

Here must you especially note how Isaias, Ezechiel, and St. John
accord in stating that Satan was cast upon the earth. Our Lord
also calls Satan " the prince of this world " ; and St. Paul describes
the wicked angels as *' the rulers of the world of this darkness, the
spirits of wickedness in high places ". On this part of the vision
St.. John is explicit, as we shall see directly; and there was evi-
dently some great purpose contemplated in permitting the entrance
of the evil spirits into this world before their final punishment.

No sooner are they cast out of Heaven than St. John hears the

* See Cornelius a Lapide on the whole text. Also the Author's
Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God, c. viii.

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST. 293

rejoicings of the good angels over their victory, and a loud voice
saying : " Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom
of our God, and the power of His Christ : because the accuser of
our brethren is cast forth. They overcame him by the blood of
the Lamb, and by the word of the testimony, and they loved not
their lives unto death." Undoubtedly there is a blending of the
heavenly and earthly victories in these lines ; yet the angels attri-
bute their salvation and strength, the passing of their trial and the
coming of their kingdom, to the power of Christ and to the virtue
of His blood. And now being secure of their own salvation, they
show an intense solicitude for that of their brethren on the earth.
Hence a portentous cry is heard from one of them : " Woe to the
earth, and to the sea, because the devil is come down unto you,
having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time. And
when the dragon saw that he was cast upon the earth, he persecuted
the woman and her seed."

The whole of this narrative is profoundly significant It is more
than a vision, it is the history of what had passed in the Heaven
of the angels, blended with prophecy of what shall pass upon the
earth. The principle involved in the heavenly as well as in the
earthly conflict is faith in the Incarnation of the Son of God.
The strife between the good and evil angels only ceases in the
heavens to be transferred to the earth ; and there the contest is
renewed for the souls of men, who stand or fall, as the angels
stood or fell, by their fidelity or infidelity to the mystery and
grace of the Incarnation. The good angels are Christ's ministers
to protect men from evil and draw them to the grace of Christ,
contending against the evil spirits for our salvation; the bad
angels are the ministers of their own malice and envy, contending
for man's destruction; they lost their own good in refusing
obedience and worship to the God made man, and for that
very reason they seek to destroy the good of man, and to draw
him into their own apostasy.

The Scriptures everywhere record this contest of spirits good
and bad for the salvation or destruction of man ; and even the
pagan world was conscious of being surrounded by invisible
powers inferior to God, that exercise a great influence over man-
kind for weal or woe.

The fall of Satan began in self-love, and developed into a pride
so monstrous as to aim at independence. By an enormous abuse

294 THE FALL OF MAN

of God's gifts, he sought to make himself the centre of good and
of dominion. He was ambitious to usurp the headship of
creation in place of the Word made man. His defeated pride
burst forth into a fixed and unchangeable hatred of God, and into
an equal hatred of man, because of the elevation of human nature
in the Son of God above the angelic hosts. Hence his hatred
of the image of God in man. Hence his malicious enmity to all
mankind. Hence his undying envy of that race of mortals which
is destined to fill up the seats vacated in Heaven by him and his
followers. As he plotted the destruction of the Divine Child
revealed to him as born of woman, and has been plotting the
destruction of man from that time to this, our Lord says of him,
that "he was a man-slayer from the beginning".

The question now arises : Why did God permit Satan to enter
the world, and to seek the destruction of man ? Although the
judgments of God are unsearchable, and His ways past finding
out, yet He has not left us without some knowledge of those ways.
Man must be tried, as the angels were tried, that those who are
faithful may be approved. Man must be searched through, that
he may know that his strength is not in himself. He must be
tempted as the angels were tempted : how else shall he know the
weakness of his nature and the gift and the power of divine grace ?
If he conquers, as the faithful angels conquered, he will be
crowned with glory and honour. If he fall, as many angels fell, it
is because of some terrible weakness, and it is good for him to find
that weakness out, because it is unsuited to the everlasting king-
dom. For the mercy of our Heavenly Father has provided that
his fall shall not be irreparable, and that he shall not perish in
that just proving of his frailty, but that he shall be able to obtain all
the strength that he needs from a new Head and Saviour of the
human race.

Satan has no power over the man, if the man be only vigilant
and faithful. He cannot oppress him with violence ; he has no
power to compel him against his will and inclination ; whilst every
caution is given him beforehand. Satan must find an ally in the
man himself before he can overthrow him and take possession.
He can only proceed by stratagems and beguilements. Each of
the combatants has a helper ; if Satan has his serpent, the man
has the grace of God, as well as the command of God to steady
him. The insidious assault is aimed at God as well as at the

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST 295

man; and though the man may be worsted, God cannot be
conquered. The man finds out his weakness ; God provides the
remedy. But if man had been withheld from the combat, Satan
would not have been overthrown. St. Chrysostom puts the case
in the following parable : " An athlete enters the arena and chal-
lenges two others to the combat. One of them is weak, unprac-
tised, and soon vanquished in the conflict : the other is strong,
and perfect in all athletic exercises. But if you refuse the
challenge and prohibit the trial, whose honour would be injured ?
The honour of the weak one who is so quickly overcome, or the
honour of the strong one who conquers for both ? " *

God created man just to show His justice, and good to show
His goodness, and placed him in paradise to show His bounty.
But after his weakness had been revealed to Him, it was good for
him to be cast out of paradise, that he might win greater fortitude
under a sterner discipline. It was good for him to learn by his
defeat and failure that his strength is in God, and not in himself,
and that it is only through the divine power that Satan is van-
quished and kept at a distance. Thus did, by the fall of one,
strength and salvation come to all; for behold, God descends
in a cause that is His own as well as ours.

It was against the woman and her Divine Child that Satan
warred in Heaven. It was against the mother of mankind that
he first spread his deceits on earth. He approaches her disguisedly,
questions her insidiously, awakens her curiosity, allures her by the
senses with desire of the forbidden fruit, prompts her to the pride
of independence, and insinuates the ambition of becoming like
to God, knowing good and evil. Thus outwardly allured by the
tempter, she swells inwardly with pride against the command, and
that pride breaks forth outwardly into manifold evil. She plucked
the fruit, and did eat, and her disobedience was consummated.
Then the woman became the tempter of the man. She gave him
the fruit with ensnaring words and endearments, and he did eat,
and his disobedience was also consummated. But mark the result :
" The eyes of both were opened, and they perceived themselves
to be naked ". Their sin revealed to them the whole of their
infirmity.

Whilst sin is yet in progress, the inward pride from which it
springs goes on increasing; it swells, it inebriates, it blinds the

• S. J. Chrysost., Horn, De Diabolo Tentatore.

296 THE FALL OF MAN

soul, and that with the constantly augmented appearance of a
greater good. But no sooner is the evil consummated than the
eyes are opened and the delusion vanishes. The soul has turned
from God, and the spiritual life has departed. Nature remains,
but its happy condition is changed into disorder, and is wounded
to its centre. Clothed heretofore in soul with God's grace, and
in body with innocence and purity, and having had no experience
of a worse state of existence, the eyes of the human pair were
opened to their past good by their present evil, and they find them-
selves naked both in body and soul. Having broken from the
rule of God, their bodies break away from the rule of their
enfeebled and discordant souls. Shame covers them with confu-
sion ; fear fills them with distress ; the sickness of the soul in her
loss ; the sadness of the spirit in its bereavement of vital force ;
the sense of defilement, the hollowness of a life now first estranged
from the life of God ; and the terror of death, shoot the keenest
pangs, as of spiritual dissolution, through the conscience into all
their being. As far as they yet know they are not only fallen from
God, but are cast away without the hope of deliverance ; and in
their dread of divine judgment they hide themselves, as if,
poor blinded mortals, that could be, from the presence of God.

But this is God's cause. It was in hatred of God, and of God's
image in man, that Satan tempted the parents of the human race.
It was hatred of the predestined woman and her Divine Child,
whose revelation had tested his faith and the faith of his followers,
and found them wanting, that inspired Satan to seek the destruc-
tion of the mother of mankind. The woman fell through Satan,
and the man through the woman ; they found out their nothing-
ness, and were humbled to the dust. Still it is God's cause ; and,
what is worthy of profound reflection, the remedy was found
in that very mystery which Satan and his angels had assailed in
Heaven, and for infidelity to which they were cast upon the earth.

The parents of mankind have abandoned their Creator, and
have given their faith and obedience to His adversary; they have
lost their claim to the divine protection, and deserve to be aban-
doned to themselves. But there is another side to the question,
forasmuch as God's honour, His infinite greatness, and divine
dignity are involved. It is not becoming that His magnificent plan
should be defeated through the machinations of an adversary
whom he had cast out of Heaven for his crimes. God created

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST 297

man for His own glory, and predestined his nature to everlasting
union with Himself ; and inasmuch as the malice of Satan was
more aimed at his Creator than at man, it became the Infinite
Majesty, and was most worthy the divine goodness, that He should
rescue man from his misery, and defeat the malignity of Satan.

The greater part of the angels stood firm, and the angelic
nature was saved and glorified in all its orders ; but as the whole
race of man was centred in Adam, the whole of humanity fell in
him. The angels are pure spirits ; they are more intelligent than
man, and less exposed to temptation. To whatever they give
themselves, whether to good or evil, they are more fixed in their
determination. The angels that fell went wrong of their own free
action, and were under no evil influence ; but man was seduced
by the spirit of evil. Hence, whilst the fall of the angels was
irreparable, man was created to fill their vacant seats, so that if
man is saved, the divine plan is not defrauded of its end, and the
seats of glory are filled,

St, Athanasius boldly declares that " it would be unworthy of
God's goodness to suffer His own work in man to be destroyed
through the devil's fraud. It would be unbecoming that God's
workmanship in man should become extinct, whether through
his own negligence or through the devil's imposition." * The
devil could not be allowed so to gain his end as to deprive God
of the glory of perfecting His own work. The great St, Leo has
argued the point in these terms : " Forasmuch as the devil
glorified that man had lost the divine gifts through his fraud and
deception, and had so been stripped of his immortality, and
placed under the stern sentence of death ; and forasmuch as the
same Satan had obtained a solace to his wickedness in bringing
over a companion to his prevarication ; it pleased God to change
the first sentence passed on man, a sentence both just and de-
servedly severe, and passed on one whom He had established
in honour. But this demanded the dispensation of God's secret
counsel, that He who is unchangeable, and whose will cannot
lose its benignity, may complete His fatherly design in a mystery
more hidden ; and that, however driven to crime by the devil's
craft and wickedness, man may not perish^ in opposition to the
whole intention of God." t

* S. Athanas., De Incarnatione Verbi.
f S. Leo, Servi. 2 in Nativitate Domini.

298 THE FALL OF MAN

This mystery, "hidden from the foundation of the world,"
although partly revealed to the angels for another purpose — this
secret within the divine reserves — is the incarnation of the Word
of God, God might have created another Adam, and have
endowed him with new grace ; but what could this new man have
done for the old Adam ? What security was there that another
mere creature would not have failed like the first ? Some mighty
angel might have been sent to vanquish Satan, as Michael did of
old, but how could he have atoned for man? How could he have
given him that grace of reconciliation, which must be the work of
God ? How could he have given a new and heavenly birth unto
the countless children of Adam ? The sin of man has a certain
relative infinity in its malice, as being against the infinite sanctity
and majesty of God. The divine goodness has been defeated in
its aim, and the divine gifts have been violated by the sin of man ;
God's glorious workmanship has also been defiled. The fallen
Adam is the destined father of countless children, all as yet
incorporated in him, and all to be born of him in the course of
time \ they are predestined to cover the earth through the long
ages, yet they are all by nature partakers of his fall.

It is a case demanding a divine intervention of the most
extraordinary kind. For it is a far less work of divine power and
wisdom to create man than to recreate him from a moral ruin.
This calls for the intervention of the firmest, the most profound,
the most divine of moral powers. As the iniquity is human, it
must be atoned for in a human way ; but as it has a relative
infinity of guilt, as being committed against God, the atonement
must be divine. The root of the evil is pride of heart, the
venomous element of all sin, and this must be supplanted by a
new humility. Its outcome is the loss of subjection to God and
disobedience to His voice, and this must be exchanged for a new
submission and a new obedience. The inward rebellion of the
will issues forth in the rebellion of the senses, defiling the whole
man, and this must be rectified through suffering and self-denial.
The whole man is turned from God, and through divine power
must the whole man be turned to God anew.

Divine life must, therefore, enter into our human nature, not as
it is sinful, but into a human nature divinely prepared and
untouched by sin. Anticipating the merits of the redemption to
be wrought, a daughter of Adam was preserved pure from all sin,

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST. 299

and from her that pure humanity was divinely created, in which
the Son of God laid hold of death, and by His death defeated
death, and restored us to life. Each kind of sin must have its
expiation before the virtue it has destroyed can have its super-
natural restoration ; not only for Adam and Eve, but also for the
myriads of mortals that spring from their marvellous fertility, this
expiation, this conquest of sin, of death and the devil, this
humility, this self-denial, this fortitude of obedience, this grace of
all the virtues, will be needed, that God may accomplish His
grand intention of securing the final object of man's creation.

The mercy of God is inseparable from His justice, and His
justice from His mercy. How shall these divine attributes act
together in such a way that both may be completely satisfied ? As
justice is no longer left in man, how shall it appear in him anew?
How shall mercy descend to him in the company of justice?
God brings forth the hidden mystery of His eternal counsel. The
Word of God, through whom all things were made, hath alone
the power to renew all things. And unquestionably the greatest
renovation, which calls for the divinest power, is to replace injustice
with justice, and pride with humility ; to raise fallen souls out of
the abyss of sin, and to bring them back to God from that infinite
distance to which they were banished from His friendship.

In obedience to His Father's will, the Son of God takes human
nature into His person, and makes that nature everlastingly secure.
He does this before the ages in divine intention, and actually in due
course of time. He takes the headship of the human race in place
of the fallen Adam ; and with the headship of the human race, the
headship also of the angels, and of all creation. In the person of
God, but in the nature of man, yet in the purity and sanctity of
His divinity. He offers that human nature in atonement, in justice,
in intercession for His adopted brethren, upon which the Father is
well pleased to look. He shall be born of that pure and pre-
destined Virgin who was revealed to the angels, and was described
to men by the prophets, born not of man, but of the operation
of the Holy Spirit ; and so shall have His human origin in a way
wholly different from the other children of Adam. As Satan
brought sin and death into the world through the first woman,
he shall be vanquished and his arms taken from him through the
Child of the second woman. And as the human race formed one
corporation with the fallen Adam, they shall by faith be

300 THE FALL OF MAN

incorporated with a better Adam, inseparable from God, from
whom grace and justice shall descend as from the head to the
members; yet so that He first offer atonement for the sins of
men, and substitute His divine humility and obedience for our
pride and rebellion.

Let me now ask your gravest attention to the following sentences
of St. Leo, for in them he sounds the whole moral depth of the
mystery of human redemption : " The whole victory whereby
our Saviour conquered the devil and the world was conceived in
humility, and was worked out by humility. His predestined days
began and ended under persecution. Sufferings came upon the
Child, and the meekness of the Child came to the suffering Man ;
because in one and the same descent of Majesty, He took a human
birth, and received a human death. When, therefore, Almighty
God took up a cause so exceedingly bad as our cause was. He made
it good by the prerogative of humility, and through this humility
He destroyed both sin and death. . . . For this reason the whole
sum of the wisdom of Christian discipline is to be found, neither
in voluble speech, nor in keen disputations, nor in the appetite
for praise and glory, but it consists in true humility, freely
accepted ; and this from His mother's womb to His agony on the
Cross, the Lord Jesus Christ chose for all strength, and taught
that strength to us."*

But to this profoundest view of the Incarnation, wherein the
Son of God sounded all the depths of the infirm creature, we
must add the most exalted view of this divine economy : that
glory to God in the highest, which arose from the manifestation of
the noblest of all possible creations — a creation recapitulating all
spiritual and earthly creations in one most perfect composition of
all that was highest in Heaven with all that was humblest in
humanity clasped for ever in hypostatic union with the Eternal
Word. This is the very ecstasy of creation, the Son of God going
out of Himself, as it were, to embrace all the elements of creation
from the highest to the lowest in His person. For in Christ the
Father raised up both a spiritual and an earthly creation into union
with the Godhead of the Son, to sit at His right hand, and to
renew all things heavenly and earthly in Him.

From the contemplation of the great mystery preparing to
descend upon the earth, let us return to our first parents in their

• S. Leo, Serm. 7 in Epiphaniam.

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST. 301

fall and desolation. We beheld them naked in soul and body,
captives to the devil, trembling with fear, dazed with trouble and
confusion, and expecting the judgment of God. The Lord
descends into the garden of paradise, and is heard walking in
human form, and speaking with a human voice, as already preluding
the Incarnation. The guilty pair attempt, in their terror, to
conceal themselves. God calls them ; He questions them. They
answer by evasions and by mutual recriminations. Their shame
and confusion contend with their self-love, and reveal the broken
condition of their souls. The voice of the Lord recalls them to
their conscience, and they hear their sentence, which, however
humbling to pride and hard to flesh and blood, is a sentence of
mercy. They are cast out of paradise, as the disobedient angels
were cast out of Heaven ; but they go forth in hope, whilst the
angels went forth in despair. They are subjected to a severe and
humbling discipline of labour and suffering ; but this penalty is
imposed as a medicine to their pride, and as a safeguard to their
weakness. They go forth in hope, because they have heard of
their promised redemption in the sentence pronounced on their
destroyer : " I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and
between thy seed and her seed ; she shall crush thy head, and
thou shalt lie in wait for her heel ".

Well did Satan know his adversary ; not the seed of the man
before him, but the seed of the woman ; the Child of that woman
of whom he already had foreknowledge ; of that woman revealed
to him in Heaven, whose Child was taken up to God and to His
throne. The Child of that woman shall crush his head, and
defeat his enterprise of destroying the human race.

That you may better understand the great cause that is pleading
between Heaven and earth, let us pass in meditation through the
eternal gates, and enter the holy court, where man and his
tempter are arraigned before the Eternal Justice. If the awful
presence of the Divine Justice fills our poor nature with dread,
behold side by side with that August Majesty sit the gentle forms
of Grace and Mercy, prepared to moderate the severity of judg-
ment. There are three parties to the cause — the offended Majesty
of God ; man, the criminal ; and Satan, the instigator of the
crime.

The first plea is against Satan. That, being the enemy of God,
from pure malice he has invaded the rights of God ; and that,

302 THE FALL OF MAN

exercising a malicious stratagem and fraud, he has seduced God's
creature and servant, made for His service and glory, and has
withdrawn him from his duty and obedience to his Sovereign
Lord. That, by false statements, he has led the man to aspire
with treasonable pride to be as God. That, after withdrawing him
from God and His salvation, he has kept him in an evil bondage
under his own power, and that Satan has therefore incurred a
greater punishment than he has yet received for his former
crimes.

The second plea is against man. That he also has invaded the
rights of God, and has treated the divine authority with con-
tempt and disobedience ; that he has withdrawn his faith from
God who made him, and has given it to the enemy of God ; that
he has risen up in a revolting spirit of pride, and has aspired to
be as God ; that he has deprived his Lord and Creator of that
homage and due service which both as a rational creature, and as
the representative of the whole earthly creation, he owed to God ;
and that he has done this in the face of a divine command, and
in defiance of the light and grace with which his Divine Master
had endowed him. And that however he may have been deceived
and misled by an enemy in the guise of a friend, he has acted
against the known will of God, and of his own free will and
choice, and with deep ingratitude to his Divine Benefactor. He
has, therefore, incurred the sentence of death, both of soul and
body.

But there is a third case before the court of Eternal Justice, a
case that pleads to Mercy as well as to Justice. For Satan has
inflicted great evils on man, and has inflicted them under the fraudu-
lent promise of good. Under the malicious pretext of rendering
him a great service, he has deprived him of all his goods, and even
of the hope and expectation of his supreme and eternal good. For-
asmuch as man is God's creature, and that he owes subjection and
obedience to God alone, Satan holds an unjust possession of him.
But, forasmuch as man gave himself to Satan of his own free act
and will, he is justly left in the bonds of Satan. For although
Satan has no inherent right to take possession of man, and to treat
him oppressively, yet man has through his own fault and folly
deserved the bondage and oppression that he suffers. For, granting
he was deceived, he was deceived with his eyes open ; and after
the Lord his God had given him full caution, and had enforced

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST. 303

that caution with a clear command, he fell into Satan's snares.
But he has no valid excuse for doing so, because he was not
ignorant of his duty, and he knew that he ought not to covet or
desire what was against the known will of God, as it was openly
declared to him both by his internal light and by an external com-
mand. In consequence of his prevarication and sin, therefore,
man is justly subject to Satan ; but forasmuch as his adversary
has acted a false, fraudulent, and malicious part, he is not justly
subject to Satan.

But the cause between man and Satan is secondary to the cause
between man and God. He has deserted his Creator for whom he
was made. He has deserted his faith and trust in his Divine
Benefactor, who provided him with all things good and desirable,
and who contemplated his advancement in due time to His own
immortal glory. Moreover, his Lord had appointed him His repre-
sentative on earth, had given him the dominion of the visible
creation, and had not only formed him to His own image and
likeness, but had made him the head, the heart, and voice of the
world, that through him all the creatures beneath him might
worship, honour, and obey their Creator, and might be subject to
God through his piety. By his revolt he has not only ruined him-
self beyond his power to repair, but has defeated God's design
over His creation at large, and brought deterioration upon the
entire world.

This is the position of the case, and the sum of the cause.
Still, if man can only find an advocate and a protector to bring
Satan into court, his right to hold possession of man may be
repelled. No such an advocate, however, can be found, unless
God Himself take up the cause. But unless man first returns to
God, God cannot take up his cause. The Divine Justice must first
receive satisfaction for his apostasy and sin. He must first
make atonement to God, and purge his contempt by suitable
reparation. But this he cannot do. Having turned himself
away from God, the grace of God has left him : and wanting grace
and the subjection to God which grace gives, he cannot turn to
God anew, or find anything within him that is worthy of God.
Deeply wounded and terribly disordered from his fall, he is power-
less to rise again. Having preferred the creature to the Creator,
his sin is relatively infinite ; he has no justice in him that will
enable him to approach the Eternal Justice. How, then, can the

304 THE FALL OF MAN

sinful creature offer his sinful self for an atonement ? This would
not be an atonement but an insult. Sunk in spiritual death, what
life or justice has he to offer for a reparation ?

The irrational creatures are at his disposal, and he may offer
them in sacrifice. But how can irrational creatures atone for the
crimes of spiritual beings made in the image of God ? They can
only receive a violence which they instinctively resist. Can he
offer man for man ? The innocent man has ceased to exist, and
the sinful man alone remains. But a sinful sacrifice is an abomi-
nation to the Lord. As man can neither offer himself, or anything
less than himself that can in the least atone, or find anything in
him that is just, he has no escape from condemnation, no means
of deliverance from everlasting death.

But God would not have His work to perish. He would not
have His glorious plan of creation, and the still more glorious plan
for its glorification, to become a defeat and a failure, and that
through the malice of His own apostate creature. In His divine
reserves, the almighty and all-wise God has a yet more magnifi-
cent plan for restoring and perfecting His creation, and of con-
quering evil with the greatest good. He comes, therefore, to His
fallen creature both in mercy and in justice, and delivers him from
death by a most wonderful invention of justice. Yet before man
can have a just and reasonable deliverance, justice must be
satisfied on both sides of the case. For God must have a just
cause for delivering him, and man must have a just way of escape
from his injustice. But these God alone can provide.

Mercy and Grace step forward to reconcile the claims of Justice
in a way most wonderful. Mercy and Grace and Justice unite in
one Divine Person, and in that Divine Person God gives to man
another Man, " holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners,
and made higher than the heavens," and He shall be offered in the
place of fallen man. That this compensation may be worthy the
justice of God, this Man is incomparably greater than Adam and
all his race. The Son of God is made man, and partakes the
nature of Adam in a pure and divine way, and becoming a victim in
His humanity of humility and obedience, He offers His life and
death to God the Father in atonement for the injustice of the
whole human race. He gives Himself to mankind, and becomes
the brother of men, that from mankind He may receive Himself
anew as their expiatory victim. In the words of Isaias : " A child

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST. 305

is bom to us, and a Son is given to us, and the government is on
His shoulders : and He shall be called Wonderful, Councillor,
the Mighty God, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of
Peace ". As He is given by God to man, Christ is the gift of
divine mercy and grace ; as He is offered to God by man. His
offering is the justice due from mankind to God. He is no sooner
born than He begins to propitiate the Father ; for which reason
the angels sing : " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace to men of good will ". He first restores man to God in
Himself, and then He offers Himself for all men to God ; after
which God smiles once more upon the earth with a mercy super-
exalted over His judgment.

But man has still to escape the penalties of his pride and dis-
obedience, and to purge his contempt with a condign satisfaction.
This also was compensated by the Son of God, in His free accept-
ance of the humiliations and sufferings which for Himself He did
not owe, and He attached them with all His obedience to the
dignity and merit of His divine Person. " Being in the form of
God," says St. Paul, " He thought it not robbery to be equal to
God ; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being
made in the likeness of man, and in habit found as a man. He
humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, even to the
death of the Cross." Except, therefore, for the voluntary humilia-
tions and sufferings of the Holy and Innocent One, freely accepted
and freely offered for mankind, man had no escape from con-
demnation. But Christ delivered him from the everlasting
penalties due to his pride and disobedience, provided he accept
that deliverance, and is willing to return to God through the
paths ordained for his return. As for sinful man, he suffers no
more than he has been justly ordained to suffer for his contempt,
and therefore can pay nothing towards his deliverance, which is
wholly the work of the Innocent and Divine Man.

When Christ had atoned for our guilt by His birth and death,
and had paid our debt, there was no place left for Satan's calum-
nious accusations. He lost his dominion over man so soon as
he chooses to accept his Divine Deliverer, and is freed from the
devil's bondage. Judgment was exercised against his claims in
the passion of Christ, when He took the handwriting that was
against us, attached it to His Cross, and blotted it out with His
blood. Once incorporated with Christ and possessed of His

20

3o6 THE FALL OF MAN

blood, we may say of Satan, with the Psalmist : " When my enemy
shall be turned back, they shall be weakened and shall perish
before Thy face. For Thou hast maintained my judgment and
my cause : Thou hast sat on the throne, who judgest justice."

Upon the cause between man and God, judgment is reserved
to the end of life ; and if in the interval through Christ he is
reconciled to God, he may await that judgment without fear.
For having destroyed death by death, and obtained the reversal
of our judgment, by the rights which He has won for us, Christ
raises us up from death to life ; and in token of this power He
descended into hell from His Cross, broke the brazen gates
asunder, and delivered those spirits from their captivity who had
believed the promise, and had descended thither to await the
coming of their Divine Deliverer.

Christ took away our reproach and restored our honour. For
in what does that honour consist but in the likeness of God ?
When man aspired to be as God, he lost that honour, and,
becoming foolish, he did not understand. Then he had to suffer
that reproach of his Creator : " Behold, Adam hath become as
one of us, knowing good and evil ". When the first of men heard
this terrible rebuke, one might almost imagine that the Psalmist
at a later time but repeated the earnest entreaty of his soul :
" Thou hast rebuked the proud : they are cursed who decline
from Thy commandments. Remove from me reproach and con-
tempt." Most wonderfully has God removed our reproach and
contempt. For, " Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bring forth
a Son, and His name is the God with us. He shall eat milk and
butter, that He may know how to reprove evil and choose good."
These few words embrace the foundation of our faith. The father
of our race aspires to be as God, and one of the Divine Persons
of the Holy Trinity exclaims : " Behold, Adam hath become as
one of us, knowing good and evil ". Just, awful, and severe is this
ironical reproach. Yet has it received a merciful direction to
reveal to man his weakness and his folly. But how is this
reproach removed from those who have taken refuge in the
humility of Christ ? For they may say even with glowing truth :
Behold, God has become as one of us; and the voice of contempt
is changed into the voice of praise. Christ knows good with a
perfect knowledge and experience. He also knows evil with a
perfect knowledge, though without experience. He knows good

AND THE REDEMPTION OF CHRIST. 307

that He may impart it to us ; He knows evil that He may deliver
us from it. That also which was so bitter and ironical a reproof,
when addressed to the first Adam, has become the most authentic
truth when addressed to the second Adam. From the voice of
the Holy Trinity it can be said to Him : " Behold, Adam hath
become as one of us," because of His divinity ; whilst from the
voice of humanity it may be said to Him : " Behold, Adam hath
become as one of us," because of His humanity.*

As our creation was the work of power, our redemption is the
work of mercy. Mercy has come down from heaven in the
divinity of our Saviour, and justice has sprung up from the earth
in His humanity. The mystery of redemption is the mercy of
re-creation, and of regeneration in the blood of Christ. And the
Holy Scriptures, which are ever concentrating our mind and
heart upon this work of redemption, as either promised or fulfilled,
are inexhaustible in exhibiting the works and ways of mercy,
which all gather round or flow out from this inexhaustible fountain
of mercy. "He hath not dealt with us according to our sins;
nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. For according to the
height of the heavens above the earth : He hath strengthened His
mercy towards them that fear Him."

It is also written, that "the Lord is sweet to all who call upon
Him " ; that " He loveth mercy and judgment " ; that " His tender
mercies are above all His works " ; and that " the earth is full of
His mercy". This broad, deep, and inexhaustible stream of
mercy flows into all the ways of human nature, and beats ever
at the doors of proud and obdurate hearts to find an entrance ; it
flows, and ever continues to flow, from the fountain of life opened
in the mystery of our redemption. Christ is our mercy, and His
grace is the power of His mercy, sweet yet strong, and sometimes
even terrible in its first assaults on hearts given up to pride
and malice. Mercy is patient, is long suffering, is not easily
turned from its purpose. It watches the wilful, wayward heart of
man, ready to take the first opening, and to bring by that opening
the gift of repentance. The divine attribute of mercy comes in
every form and shape of grace : preventing, soliciting, attracting ;
inbreathing, arguing, entreating, rebuking ; chastising souls away
from evil with stripes in compassion for their misery; striking

• See Hugo de Sancto Victore, Dialog. De Sacramentis Legis Natural, et
Script, per totutn.

3o8 THE FALL OF MAN.

the headstrong from their pride with terror; visiting in gentle
mood those who are softened by affliction. The grace of mercy
humbles the proud, and consoles the humble ; lifts up the sincere
mind with faith, inspires the desponding heart with hope, and
quickens the obedient soul with the flame of charity. Mercy
abides her time for the returning sinner, embraces the penitent
with benignity, and descends to the humble with sweetness;
infuses strength into the desolate with secrecy; rewards the
merciful with superabounding mercy. As Christ is our mercy,
and pride alone resists the operation of His mercy, humble souls,
vacant of themselves, are the animated, beautiful, and capacious
vessels of His mercy ; since " He endured with much patience
vessels of wrath, fitted for destruction, that He might show the
riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He hath pre-
pared unto glory ''. But in this world of grief and trouble, the
mercies of grace are not the joys of the blessed, but the con-
solations of our exile ; therefore we say : " Let Thy mercy be to
my consolation ".

LECTURE XII.

THE RESTORATION OF MAN.
"Behold I make all things new." — Apocalypse xxi. 5.

TO cultivate the body at the cost of the soul is to subvert the
order of life ; and, by a parity of truth, to cultivate earthly
science at the cost of spiritual wisdom, is to subvert the order of
knowledge, and to sacrifice the wisdom of the mind. What is
science but the knowledge of things in their causes? But the
causes of material things are spiritual. And what is wisdom but
the knowledge of the highest things in their highest causes, and
in the ultimate ends for which they exist ? Man is placed in this
world as a middle term between earth and Heaven, holding by
his body of the earth, and by his soul of Heaven, He is placed
between the superior good of Heaven and the inferior good of
this world, that by the help of God and his own virtue he may
ascend by degrees from earthly to divine things. He is a middle
good with a great capacity for divine good, that by the light and
grace of God he may exercise the sublime office of spiritualizing
his whole nature, and exalting it in mind and heart in the direc-
tion of eternal truth and good, and may so use the elements of
this world as to bring them into the service of his spiritual life
and intelligence. But if he reverses this noble order of things,
and directs his mind and conduct to the materializing of his
mind and the sensualizing of his life, instead of ascending to
superior good, he loses even his middle good, and descends in all
his nature to a degraded state and position altogether unworthy of
his humanity, and perverts both his gifts and his nature. But
the wise man is he who is intelligent upon himself, who under-
stands why God has placed him in this position, and who is

3IO THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

recognized in these words of the Psalm : " Blessed is the man
whose help is in Thee : he hath disposed ascensions in his heart,
in the vale of tears, in the place where he is set ".

There is a vanity of science, which is not less vicious than the
moral vanity of the heart — a vanity wholly given to the elements
of this world, to the exclusion of the solid things of the soul.
This vanity vitiates both the man and his science, sometimes even
to the absurd extent of his imagining that the science of this world
may stand in place both of religion and of the highest and purest
virtue. Yet such a one sees nothing in its highest cause nor in
its final end. To him all is as though it were suspended on
nothing, and all as though it tended to nothing. We may justly
call this vanity, as Solomon discovered many ages ago, in sur-
veying the tendencies of the natural sciences, when cultivated
apart from God. And vanity is vacuity. Like the devoting of
the soul to the body, it leaves the inward man vacant, and his
spirit void ; for neither the body nor the things of the body can
fill the spirit, or give it rest, or bring the desired fruits to its
toils.

The garment of science is not the body of science, nor the
body the soul, nor the soul the life of science. There can be no
soul of science for him who is contented with the outward and
material garment of visible things, or with the mere body of this
world, and who cannot, or rather will not, ascend in mind from
things visible to things invisible. Nor can he pass from the soul
to the life of science, who will not ascend from things created
to their Divine Creator, to their first and final cause, to the
Divine Illuminator of all, and to the Divine Perfecter of all. It
is a marked weakness of such men that, failing in wisdom, they
do not estimate things so much according to their real or relative
value in the order of good, or in the scale of things, as by their
newness, their way of affecting the curiosity of the mind, and
their interest as matters of inquiry. So that they are inclined to
look upon all things as equal to the mind, with the only distinc-
tion of their being novel, rare, or curious. But with this tendency
of mind, with this minute philosophy, the grand view of the
greater things is too apt to be lost sight of, and the great and
universal truths, which God designed for all men, are too apt to
recede from sight. Not because they are not present, and visible
as ever, but because these minute philosophers have contracted

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 31 1

their vision, and bent it downwards ; and they next deny what
they have disenabled themselves to see.

But all truth belongs to God, who is its first possessor. And
all truth exists in a pre-eminent way in God ; and the nearer we
are to God the more truth we see, and by having this greater
truth are the more like in mind to God. And be it ever remem-
bered that truth is the oldest of all things, whilst man is both
new and fond of novelties. Changeable in himself, he is fond of
change. But let him who seeks the divine truth remember that
it comes from God, and can never be devised by man, for it is
most ancient, fixed, and unchangeable. And our adherence to
that ancient truth makes us of a constant and unchangeable, yet
of an ever-growing and fruitful mind. For our mind is like the
fruit-tree in this respect, that if rooted in the truth it is fruitful,
but if it is constantly shifting from opinion to opinion, it can bear
no solid fruit.

All things in the creation have their lights and shadows. There
is nothing in this visible world, from the sun in the heavens to
the pebble that rolls under our feet ; from the man with whom
we are familiar to the insect we examine with the microscope,
that has not a side that is in light and another that is in obscurity.
Whatever we know in this world, whether by perception or by
the testimony of others, is partly known and partly unknown ;
yet we have sufficient knowledge to secure certainty, sufficient for
conviction, for assent, for belief, and for our guidance. And
nothing can be more irrational, nothing more unphilosophical,
than to argue from the obscure against the clear side of any fact
or truth, as if the one was the denial of the other ; whereas it is
that which is clear that vouches for that which is obscure in one
and the same subject. Yet this is the common method of sceptics
and unbelievers.

But if our natural knowledge presents us with both lights and
shadows ; with clear evidence, attended by obscurities beyond the
reach of our limited mind and faculties ; how much more must we
expect this to be the case when our minds are brought into
contact with the divine and supernatural truths of revelation.
Nor must it be forgotten, that in His divine economy of reve.
lation, the God of Heaven contemplates a twofold purpose : the
one to enlighten us with divine truth, and to guide us by that
light on our way to Heaven; the other to try our faith and

3 1 2 THE RESTORA TION OF MAN.

obedience. He, therefore, who asks for a perfect light all round
and through a mystery of faith, whose seat is in God, as the
condition of accepting it, is much more absurd than he who
expects a perfect light all round and through the objects of
nature, whose place is in this world, before he assents to their truth
and existence. The light given with divine revelation is so
tempered, that the good may use it with confidence, and are never
without sufficient light, whilst it is in the power of the evil-
disposed to refuse that light. For God has made His revelation
the test and trial whether we will freely accept His truth by faith
or not. There is light enough, and much more than enough,
for them who are humble-minded and willing to see. There is
obscurity enough to test their spirits who are proud-minded and
unwilling to see. There is light to enlighten the faithful, and
obscurity to humble them. There is obscurity enough for the
unfaithful man to blind himself with, whilst there is light enough to
condemn him for his willing blindness. There is brightness enough
in the doctrines of faith to make our belief reasonable, and
darkness enough to make our adhesion a meritorious obedience,
and an act of fidelity to divine authority. At the same time, in
the precepts and councils of faith there is an exquisite order,
beauty, and light, which attract the love and obedience of the
heart ; whilst their difficulty arises in the course of their exercise,
making them the meritorious work of virtue.

The principles embodied in these remarks will be no unsuitable
preparation for entering upon the grand theme of human restora-
tion— a theme which involves the greatest of all human interests.

No sooner did man dare to break the law of God, than he fell
on the instant from that high honour to which God had raised
him. So long as he walked in the path of rectitude, his heart
was pure and innocent, and he was clothed in the white stole of
justice as with a garment of grace and beauty. Loving God with
His beautiful gift of love, he was loved by God as with a father's
love. The unfailing light of celestial truth shone to his mind,
and a frank and complete integrity gave serene power to his will.
All his appetites obeyed his will with calmness, and he held the
sovereign dominion not only over his body, but over all that in
Nature was inferior to himself. Peace and joy abounded in his
heart, and his happiness was augmented with the certain hope of
eternal life, and of rising after a time to supreme beatitude with

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 313

God. But, alas ! no sooner has he drunk the deadly venom of
sin, than all this is taken from him, and he falls as a king from
his throne.

What tongue can tell the evils that fall upon man when he falls
away from God ? The loss of his spiritual gifts destroys his
communion with Heaven ; the horrible turpitude of guilt defiles his
nature to its centre ; the divine love is for him changed into
wrath, and fills him with terror ; he is enchained in a hard bon-
dage to the devil, who seduced him ; his cupidities have arisen
over his weakened powers of control, and rage against him; fears
and troubles agitate him; the dread of an eternal as well as of a
natural death pursues him; the loss of light and the obscuring
influences of sin leave a darkness on his mind that even weakens
his intelligence of the laws of nature, over which he was appointed
to hold dominion, and clouds all his faculties and powers.

Had he any hope of deliverance from his great and many evils
his lot would be less sad and mournful ; but by his own conduct
he has closed up every way of escape. Before he can be
delivered from his fallen state and disgraceful servitude, the
divine justice must be satisfied, the divine honour repaired, an
equitable atonement must be offered for his sins, and a just price
paid for his redemption. But what good has he to offer to God ?
What life can he substitute for the life in God that he has lost ?
Having lost the supernatural element of life which made him
pleasing to God, what grace has he left with which to make his
offering acceptable to God? He has nothing left him but his
fallen nature, separated from God, weakened, darkened, defiled
with injustice and disorder, and already forfeited to death and
everlasting punishment. Even the human race to be yet born
from him is involved in his condemnation, because God had
made him the one fontal principle of all humanity. There is no
way left open from man to God ; the only possible way open is
from God to man. Deliverance may come from Heaven ; it
cannot possibly come from the earth.

The Fathers of the Church have argued from the omnipotence
of God that He might have effected the deliverance of man and
his restoration to justice in some other way ; but that in His
infinite goodness and mercy, and for His own divine glory. He
chose the most magnificent and generous way, the way most
abounding in goodness and condescension, the way most

314 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

necessary to accomplish a most secure, as well as a most plentiful
and overabounding redemption and salvation to man, through the
Incarnation of His Eternal Word.

In the first place, it was the most secure, because man in his
weakness might fall again. But by the Incarnation of the Son of
God, human nature, as the fountain of redemption and salvation,
was made everlastingly secure, by its inseparable union with the
person of the Son of God. In the second place, the Incarnation
of the Eternal Word was most singularly adapted to the weakness
and to the requirements of man. For man is a creature of sense
as well as mind, and is more inclined to things visible than to
things invisible, and more easily passes to things invisible through
the things that are visible. The whole world, therefore, is so
made by God, that through visible things we may be able to
ascend more easily to the knowledge of things invisible. But now,
since his fall, man is "carnal, sold unto sin "; and it is, therefore,
still more needful for him that truth, and justice, and the power
of redemption and salvation, should come to him from Heaven in
a visible, and even in a human form, with human affections and
sympathies, that he may be drawn back to God and to his salvation
even " by the cords of Adam ".

In the third place, the magnificent scheme of the Incarnation is
the most glorious to God. For, however great and god-like it is
to create good, it is incomparably greater to conquer evil with
good, and to destroy that evil through the creation of a greater
good. But the Incarnation of the Son of God is the most magni-
ficent of all creations, most magnificent above all creations both
of angels and of men ; most magnificent in the personal union of
that creation with the Eternal Word, through whom all things
were created ; and most magnificent in its infinite condescension.
And what adds immeasurably to this magnificence, God takes
occasion of the great evil with which His creatures oppose Him
to accomplish this grandest of creations, that He may overcome
evil with the creation and endowment of superabounding good.

Then came forth the most wonderful manifestation of the
attributes of God in their most magnificent exercise. To use the
words of St. John of Damascus : The mystery of the Incarnation
showed forth the united goodness and wisdom, and justice and
power of God. His goodness, in that He did not despise the
infirmity of His own creature ; His justice, in that when man was

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 315

vanquished, He caused His tyrant to be vanquished in no other
way than by man; nor did He rescue man Himself from death by
violence ; His wisdom, in that He provided a most becoming pay-
ment of a most difficult debt ; and His infinite power, because
nothing can be greater in the exercise of power than that God
should be made man.*

Returning to the divine goodness, as in this glorious mystery it
is in the highest degree manifested, we must remember that the
nature of God is goodness, and that it belongs to goodness to
communicate good, and to the Supreme Goodness to communi-
cate Himself to the creature in a supreme way. But this He has
accomplished, as St. Augustine observes, when He united a created
nature to Himself, and that in a way so intimate that the soul
and flesh of man became one in person with the Eternal
Word.t

Wherefore, in the solemn words of the God Incarnate Himself:
" God so loved the world, as to give His only-begotten Son ; that
whosoever believeth in Him, may not perish, but may have
eternal life. For God sent not His Son into the world to judge
the world, but that the world may be saved by Him." He came
not only to heal our misery, but to promote us, as became so
divine a Redeemer and Benefactor, to greater good than we had
lost by our sin. What faith can be so firm and assured as that
which rests upon the very Word of Truth, appearing visibly in the
world, speaking in our own nature to us, living the truth before
our eyes, conversing with men, face to face and soul to soul, as a
man speaks with his friend. " That man might walk with con-
fidence in the truth," says St. Augustine, " the Son of God, the
very truth, took the nature of man, to found and establish the
truth in us." %

What could raise our hope so high, or give so firm a trust in
the goodness and mercy of God, as that the Son of God should
partake our very nature ? He has become one of us, to inspire us
with full confidence in His loving disposition to do all things for
us. He who has given us Himself, will He not give us all things ?
He tells us, that we have only to ask and to receive. What,
again, could be more eminently calculated to bring us back to the

* S. J. Damascus, De Orthodox Fide, 1. iii., c. i.
t S. August., De Trinitate, 1. xiii., c. 17.
J S. August., De Civitate Dei, 1. xiii. , c. 2.

3i6 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

love of God than a proof so great and striking of the love of God
for us ? " God commendeth His charity towards us : because,
when as yet we were sinners, according to the time, Christ died
for us." One of the greatest causes of His coming in the flesh was
to show the exceeding love of God for us. It might have been
diflScult for man to love God, if he did not know that God loved
him ; but God hath first loved us, and has exhibited His love in a
condescension so marvellous, with sufferings so great, in a work
so full of love, that we must indeed be hardened if we return not
love for love.

Then what a good, and what a very needful good, has been
received by us in the example of a perfect human life, which the
Son of God has set before us; so that we have only to follow
Him in order to perfect our life and secure our happiness. As
St. Augustine pithily expresses it : " Our duty does not consist in
following man whom we see, but in following God whom we do not
see j and for this reason God was made man, and presented Him-
self to man, that man might see Him." * Again, in the mystery of
the Word made flesh, we have the actual proof that man may be a
partaker of the divinity, which is the true beatitude of man and
the final end of human life. For we are taught by the very fact
that God is made man, that our human nature is capable of union
with God.

But if the Incarnation of the Son of God is the most glorious
and efficacious of all designs for the promotion of our spiritual
good, it is equally the most efficacious for the removal Of that evil
which is the great obstacle to all good Why should men any
longer fear the spiritual powers of evil, after they are associated with
God in their own nature ? For He has exalted that nature above
all spiritual creations, and filled that nature with divine power to
conquer every spirit of evil, so that they tremble at the very name
of Jesus, and fly at its invocation. From the mystery of the In-
carnation we also learn to understand the great dignity of human
nature, that we may neither dishonour nor defile that nature in our-
selves. For God has shown us how high a place our human nature
holds in the creation by the very fact that He has sent His Son to
appear to men as truly man. "Acknowledge thy dignity, O
Christian," says St. Leo : " and as thou art made a partaker of
the divine nature, do not thou degenerate in thy conduct by falling

* S. August., Serm. De Nativ. Domini, 22, Z>e Temp.

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 317

back into thy former vileness."* Then the mystery of the Incar-
nation puts an end to the false and self-confident presumption of
man ; for by it we learn that the grace of God whereby we are
saved is given us in Christ, without any previous merit or deserving
on our part. And the pride of man, which is the source of all evil,
and the greatest of all hindrances to his union with God, is rebuked
and healed through the humility of the Son of God.

But the greatest achievement of power combined with love and
mercy, which the Son of God has accomplished in His humanity,
is the deliverance of man from the servitude of sin. Satan was
overcome by the justice of the man Christ Jesus, who gave the
fullest satisfaction for us. No mere man could satisfy for the whole
human race, nor did it become God to give satisfaction for the sins
committed against Him. It was needful, therefore, that Christ should
be both God and man. This St. Leo has explained in words to
be ever remembered : " Infirmity was taken up by Power, humility
by Majesty, and what was mortal by Eternity ; that, as a suitable
remedy for our evils, one and the same Mediator between God and
men might die in His human nature, and rise again by His divine
nature. For were He not true God, He would not have brought
us healing, and were He not true man. He would not have been
our example." t

St. Athanasius observes that our knowledge that the world was
created through the Word of God prepares us worthily to under-
stand why the world should be restored to the Father through
the same Word of God. For it can never be contradictory, that
the Father who made the world through His Word should heal
the same world through the self-same Word. % In this remark
St, Athanasius but follows the inspired order of teaching which
sublimely opens the Gospel of St. John. Although certain pagan
philosophers obtained a glimpse of the Word of God as the power
through which the world was created, they might have obtained
what they imperfectly knew from the chosen nation. St. Paul
assures us that " by faith we know that the world was framed by
the Word of God ; that from invisible things visible things might
be made ". As by faith we also know that the Divine Word is
" the true light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into
this world ".

* S. Leo, Serm. i, De Nativ.

f Id. ibid. See S. Thomas, Sum., p. 3, qq. i et 2.

t S. Athanas., De Incarnat. Vcrbi, c. i.

3 1 8 THE RESTORA TION OF MAN.

Here let us pause. What makes this world so wonderful, as
contemplated in the light of God, is its resting on the invisible
force of the Word of God, and its being presided over by His
invisible light, of which the light of the sun is the visible symbol.
The force of the Eternal Word by which the world and all things
therein is upheld, and the light with which He enlightens every
intelligence, is known to faith, and in part is understood through
faith. The deeper we go into the visible things of this world, the
more we come upon something mysterious and unsearchable, which
escapes both our sense and mind. Everywhere we move in the
midst of invisible power. What we call the most solid things,
because they most resist our senses, are capable of being changed
into invisible forms, in which they are much more the objects of
science. And science knows well, that with sufficient power the
whole visible world could be changed into elements invisible to
mortal sense. But this implies the mind and power of God.

If matter be so mysterious, and capable of such subtle changes of
form, how much more profound and mysterious to us is the substance
and nature of spiritual life, whose effects we see, whose power we
feel, but to whose essence we cannot penetrate. And how much
more is our mind and spiritual life surrounded with inexhaustible
mysteries that recede on every side into eternity. The Word of
God is behind the whole creation, and embraces the whole creation,
" upholding all things by the word of His power". He is therefore
described in the Book of Wisdom as the wisdom that " reaches
from end to end of all things mightily, and disposes of all things
sweetly ".

The Word of God is equally over the whole creation, enlighten-
ing all intelligences, and making what truth He chooses
intelligible to us ; and is in the whole creation, renewing all
things, except the minds that resist His light, and the wills that
use their freedom to resist His grace. " He was in the world,"
says St. John, " and the world was made by Him, and the world
knew Him not."

It is the test of the creations of God, as opposed to the
inventions of men, that they everywhere rest upon unfathomable
foundations, and that beyond a certain depth their mystery is
unsearchable. But how much more sublime, profound, and
unsearchable in its depths is that divinest of creations, in which
the Eternal Word and Creator of all things takes a created nature

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 319

up to His own Person, in which "the plentitude of the Godhead
dwelt bodily ". High as the throne of God, profound as eternity,
yet descending into the lowest depths of humanity, the Incarna-
tion of the Son of God, whilst made visible and sensible to mortal
eyes and ears, is unsearchable in its elevation, unfathomable in its
depths, and inexhaustible in truth and grace. Familiar to the
faith and love of the child is He who became a Child for our
salvation. Homely in all His human life, as a divine friend and
consoler to the poor and to the working man, is He who became
poor, and a working man, to give an example to all. To the suf-
ferer He comes as one who has suffered more, to the desolate as
one who has endured greater desolation, bringing healing to their
wounds, and strength to their weakness. Whilst to the humble
student of divine things, and to the devout contemplative, He
opens light after light and truth after truth, and one degree of
more perfect life after another ; and all this truth and life of love
grows day by day from Him, who is the Divine Sun of truth and
life. Yet the end is but as the beginning of the inexhaustible
riches of His light and treasures of His grace. But after all
the light and knowledge which the most enlightened doctor
and fervid saint have derived from the contemplation of this
mystery, be it an inspired St. John or St. Paul, or a doctor like
St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, or St. Thomas, they still find the
stupendous mysteries receding from their sight into the regions of
eternity. And nothing is left but to exclaim with St. Paul : " Oh,
the depth of the riches of the wisdom and of ^he knowledge of
God ! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how
unsearchable His ways ? " What sublimer proof can we have of
the presence of God in man, and of man in God, than His iamiliar
presence with the humblest child of faith, whilst of unsearchable
majesty and truth to the most illuminated souls ?

But all the works of God in creation are progressive. Decreed
before the foundation of the world, and promised after the
fall, the Divine Incarnation was delayed until man was prepared
for its reception. He had first to learn his own weakness, his
proneness to error, his helplessness and misery without the grace
of God. Death came, and corruption grew; and iniquity was
bred from iniquity until it exceeded all measure. Men stopped at
no evil, but added new inventions of crime and idolatry to
the old, until human nature became insatiable of sin. Death

320 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

more and more prevailed, and corruption obtained a power that
was ever on the increase. The greater part of mankind became so
infected with the earthly and carnal life as to lose all sight of what
is spiritual, so that few men could lift their minds above the
visible and material heavens. They placed their fictitious gods,
the creatures of their imagination, in the sky, on the mountain-
tops, in the woods and brooks, beneath the earth, in the sea, and
by their domestic hearth. The law of death reigned every-
where among the Gentiles, and even among the chosen and pro-
phetic race, as St. Paul shows ; and through the weakness of human
nature, the law of life became to many of them a law of death.
The human race was perishing in soul, perishing even in bodily
corruption, at the great centres of civilization. Satan seemed to be
gaining his whole cause, and only seemed to require time to
gain possession of the whole human race. Of what profit would
it have been to continue mankind, or the world devoted to the
service of man ? Both man and the world would have failed from
their final end.

But, on the other hand, to quote St Athanasius, whom we shall
chiefly follow in our further exposition, it would be less than
becoming for creatures endowed with reason, and partakers by
that reason of the Word of God, to be suffered to perish altogether.
It would be beneath the Divine Goodness to suffer creatures
made by God to be totally destroyed, and for no other reason
than that the devil had circumvented man by craftiness. Was
the divine art which God had exhibited in man to come to
nothing, because he was thoughtless and the devil crafty ? Was
the good God to suffer corruption to prevail over His perishing
creatures ? Was He to leave death to tyrannize over them ? For
what end were they made ? Better had they never been made,
than that the whole race should perish utterly. God therefore
consulted his own divine goodness, and entered upon the work of
mercy.

But in His justice God had proclaimed the law of death from
the beginning, against transgression and the sin of apostasy from
His law. And having proclaimed the law, it must be fulfilled.
Accordingly St. Paul tells us " that death reigned from Adam until
Moses, even over them who had not sinned after the similitude of
the transgression of Adam, who was a figure of Him who was to
come ". Then came the law to one people, revealing the death

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 321

of sin, but doing nothing to remove it ; filled with the promise, but
accomplishing nothing, except to raise up faith and hope in the
promise not yet fulfilled. Death must reign over man for a certain
time, or God would not be truthful in threatening death. But is
His work to perish? He did not create us for ourselves, for that
would be our misery. He did not create us to be independent
of Him, for that would be our destruction. He suffered us to
fall, that we might find out our native nothingness; and that,
finding out what we are without His grace, we might learn to
know that without Him w^e are poor, naked, blind, and miserable.

Satan appeared to succeed, but God has His great work in
view, and has already prepared that intervention whereby He will
exhibit His wisdom and goodness by drawing the greatest good
out of the greatest evil. The device of the tempter is allowed to
work, that after man has been humiliated to the very root of his
nature, and has experienced all his weakness, the longing might
revive in him for that good which the world cannot give ; and that
from the bitter taste of himself and of this deceptive world his
very discontent with himself may dispose him for better things.
For the image of God was yet in him, however much obscured j
the appetite for the greater good was not extinct, but had lost its
sway ; conscience, however dimmed, was not dead ; and the sense
of God's presence had not abandoned him so far, but that in
solemn moments he forgot his false gods, and called upon the one
true God.

What shall God do ? He might strike men with repentance as
He did the Ninevites, but repentance alone can only restrain man
from evil for the time : it could not change his inward condition ;
it could not draw out the root of corruption ; it could not restore
the divine likeness, except through the restorative power of the
Word of God, who made all things from nothing. He alone
could change corruption into incorruption ; He alone could give
the gifts which recover men to the friendship of God. He alone
could enlighten the blind and heal the wounded unto death, and
was alone worthy to intercede through His sufferings and death
for our deliverance.

To accomplish this sublime work of restoration, the Son of
God, who is never distant from His creatures, but with His Father
fills all things with His presence, came into this carnal and corrup-
tible world ; came with the utmost benignity, and showed Himself

21

322 THE RESTORA TION OF MAN.

openly. He saw how the sentence of death passed on human
trangression had gathered force from every human corruption,
and how that sentence could not be removed until it had been
fulfilled. He beheld how the malice of men had grown out of
all measure, and how it was working with ever-increasing
vehemence to the destruction of humanity, until it could be
no longer tolerated. He beheld all men guilty of death, and
without a way of deliverance. Moved at the spectacle, and
enduring no longer that Death should hold his reign over
humanity without limit or restraint. He resolved that what He
had made and enlightened with reason should not perish, and
was unwilling longer to permit the great design of His Father
in forming man to be in vain. He therefore took a body like to
ours : in taking that body to Himself, it was not His only object
to be seen and heard by men, who were become too gross to
behold Him spiritually, or He would have taken a more excellent
body ; but he took a body like ours, and of the same stock,
although He did not take it after our manner. He took that
body from an Immaculate Virgin, not through the intervention of
man, but through the power of the Holy Ghost ; and He made
that body an instrument for His service, in which He might
dwell, through which He might make Himself known, by which
He might claim kindred with us, with which He might offer an
acceptable sacrifice to His Father for His brethren.

He received that body animated with a soul like ours, that He
might be in all things perfect man. And in the act of its creation
that humanity was united, not indeed to the nature of God, but to
the person of the Eternal Word, so that His human nature was and
is the very humanity of the Son of God. His body He delivered
to death, and with a supreme kindliness gave His life to the Father
for all men whom He had made His brethren ; that the law of
death might expend its force upon Him, and so be dissolved in all
men who die to themselves in Him, and that henceforth this law
of death might have no more force over those who are made like
to Him. He also offered His body — the body, remember, of the
Son of God — that through the power and virtue dwelling in that
body, and the grace of the resurrection from the dead, He might
restore our bodies after they are gone to corruption, and might
recall them from death to life, destroying death utterly, as the
stubble is destroyed by fire.

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 323

Where the sovereign reigns in grace and power, there is order,
peace, and security from hostile foes. But the great evil that had
befallen the kingdom of this world was the alienation of its
Sovereign Lord and Master from His subjects, through their own
perversity, which left them a prey to death and Satan. When,
therefore, the Lord of life turned once more in mercy to the world,
and took up His dwelling with us in our nature, the hostile powers
were checked, and turned back at His presence; death was
encountered by life, and eternal peace restored.

What can be imagined more worthy the divine goodness than
this sublime conduct of the Son of God ? How infinite His con-
descension to His fallen creatures ? What a mighty antagonist to
the spirit of evil is the Lord of life ! He makes Himself a member
of the human race to expel the evils which have taken possession
of His brethren. By His teaching He corrects their ignorance :
by His virtue and power He restores all that they have lost to
them. All this is confirmed by the inspired words of St. Paul,
who tells us : " The charity of Christ presseth us ; judging this,
that if one died for all, then all were dead. And Christ died for all :
that they also who live, may not now live to themselves, but unto
Him who died for them, and rose again. . . . If, then, any be in
Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all
things are made new. But all things are of God, who hath
reconciled us to Himself in Christ, and hath given to us the
ministry of reconciliation." Then the Apostle in another epistle
gives us the reason why the Son of God, and not another,
should be our redemption and salvation. " But we see Jesus,
who was made a little lower than the angels, for the sufferings
of death crowned with glory and honour; that through the
grace of God He might taste death for all. For it became
Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things,
who had brought many children into glory, to perfect the author
of their salvation, by His passion. For both He that sanctifieth
and they who are sanctified are all of one. For which cause He is
not ashamed to call them brethren." After this the Apostle pro-
ceeds to show why the Word of God should take our nature to
secure our redemption : " Therefore because the children are
partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself in like manner hath
been partaker of the same : that through death He might destroy
him who had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil : and

324 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

might deliver them who through the fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to servitude ".

Of what use is our existence unless we can obtain the object of
our existence ? If we cannot come to the knowledge of God, for
whom we were created, our life is empty and vain. How can we
be the full partakers of reason, unless we know the Word of the
Father who is the reason of God, of whose reason we are made
partakers ? If, ignorant of Him, we use our reason upon nothing
but earthly things, we bring ourselves down with our reason to the
level of the animal creation. But God made us partakers of His
own image, of the Eternal Word of His reason, to lift us in mind
and heart above this earth. By the wealth of this gift He made us
capable of receiving the Word of God, the perfect image of the
Father, into our soul, that through that image of the Father we
might know the Father. For " no one hath seen God at any
time : the only-begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father,
He hath declared Him ".

A gift such as the image of God in our soul ought to have been
sufficient of itself to keep us in the knowledge of God, since it is
an implanted reflection of His own Eternal Word. But against the
neglect of that self-knowledge which brings us to the knowledge of
God, God provided for us another and an external way of knowing
Him in His works. And even against the neglect of that evidence,
in which the Eternal Word speaks to us from every side, He pro-
vided another and a more human way of bringing us to know Him.
The Divine Word spoke through His prophets, whom He clothed
with sanctity and power. And although the prophets were sent
directly to the sons of Israel, who rejected and persecuted them,
they were not sent to them alone, but to leave their teaching for
a light to the world at large, both as regards the knowledge of
God and the conduct of life.

But if men neither recognized God through the reflection of His
image within them ; nor through His law written in their conscience ;
nor in the works created through His Eternal Word, however many
and various, with which He surrounded them ; nor in that conduct
of His providence in which, through His creative Word, He upholds
and moves all things, and guides them to man's service ; nor in the
Word of God speaking His truth, wisdom, and will through His
prophets ; if, despite of all these manifestations of the benignity
and humanity of God, the race of man is still conquered and

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 325

subdued by the present delights of the world and the flesh, and by
the delusions and seductions of demons, worshipped and obeyed in
place of God ; if, so far from opening their eyes to the truth, they
only sink deeper and deeper into blindness, vice, and crime,
until they seem no longer to possess their natural reason, what
does this prove, but that they stand in absolute need of an internal
renovation of that likeness to God in which they were created, and
of a restoration of that likeness to God which it is beyond the
power of any creature to effect.

The Word of God Himself came, therefore, into the world,
that, as the very image of the Father, He might repair the image
of God in man, and restore to him the likeness of God. No
mere man could do this, because he is only made to the image of
God. No angel could do this, because he is not the image of the
Father. No one could do this but He who is the one sole image
of the Father ; and as this could not be done unless death and
corruption be first destroyed, He took human nature with which
first to destroy death and sin, and then to restore man to God's
image and likeness. If a great artist makes a good likeness of
some great personage on a valuable material, and that likeness
becomes defaced, it cannot be renewed on that same material
unless both the person whose likeness it was and the artist who
made the likeness be again present to recover the likeness. The
material in this case is the human soul, the original of the like-
ness is the Word of God, the express image of the Father, and
the artist is the same Word of God, who formed the likeness in
the beginning. If, then, man is to be restored, the Son of God
must first remove the damage, and then restore the likeness. As
the Gospel says : "The Son of Man is come to seek and to save
that which was lost ".

Who, again, could have effected this restoration but He who
knows what is in the mind and soul of man ? Who but He who
moveth all things, and through their movement makes the Father
known? He says of this Himself: "All things are delivered to
Me by My Father. And no one knoweth who the Son is but the
Father, and who the Father is but the Son, and they to whom
the Son shall reveal Him." But this revelation is made through
all the works of the Word of God. Therefore, as men had ceased
to look up to Heaven : as they looked but to earthly and human
things, or to the similitudes of earthly and human things, the Son

326 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

of God took a human soul and body, that through visible works
done in the body men might know the Son of God, and through
the Son the Father also. Having lost the sight and sense of
divine wisdom in its spiritual purity, that wisdom came to men as
a man, and with all the infirmities of man, yet in the person and
power of God, that they who had lost the divine sense of wisdom
might be brought back to that wisdom through their human
sympathies. This is what St. Paul says : " Seeing that in the
wisdom of God, the world through wisdom knew not God ; it
pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believed ".

As a man among men, the Word of God took hold of men by
their senses, that they who put their senses foremost, and judge
of all things chiefly through their senses, might be led back
through those very senses of the body to the word of truth. If
they looked with admiring eyes on the visible creation, they
saw that very creation confessing its Lord and Maker, and obeying
His commands. For our Saviour wrought such miracles in nature
as no man had ever done, and wrought them as the son of God
and Master of all things. If men were devoted to evil spirits,
they saw Him expel those spirits from the possession of men, and
might know by His command of them that the demons are not
gods. If they gave themselves to superstitious worship of the
dead, they saw Him rising from the dead, and exhibiting His
mastery of death.

But the Son of God came for a yet greater work than to
remove our errors, or even to expel our sins. He exhibits to us
His divine character and His sublimer work where He says : " I
am the way, the truth, and the life ''. He is the way through
which we pass to God, and He gives us His truth and life that
we may pass to God. That, as St. Paul has told us, ** Christ may
dwell by faith in your hearts, that being rooted and founded in
charity, you may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what
is the breadth and length, and height and depth, to know also
the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge, that you
may be filled unto all the fulness of God ".

Let no one imagine that the Son of God is enclosed in His
body so as not to be elsewhere. He was not so engaged in the
work done in the body as to leave the universe without His
creative support and His active providence. For the Word contains

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 327

all things, but is contained by none. Whilst He is in all things by
His action and influence, in His own divine nature He is above
all things. His power is in all, He administers to all, and ex-
pands His providence over all, gives light to all who have light,
and life to all who have life ; but He wholly exists in His Father
alone. The human soul must still abide with the body whilst it
contemplates things at a distance. We contemplate the heavenly
bodies, for example, and watch their movements, although con-
fined to the body, and unable to influence or move what we
contemplate. But it was in no such way that the Son of God
was in His body. He was in the body, and in all things, and
was at the same time exterior to all things, and reposed in the
Father alone. Contemplate, then, this unbounded mystery of the
Eternal Word in all its length and breadth, and height and depth;
how He who acted as man is in the person of God ; how, as the
Word of the Father, He gave light and life to all ; and how, as
the Son, He was always with the Father.

His human nature was framed by the Holy Ghost in the Virgin
Mary, and that virginal body of the Mother of God suffered
nothing at His birth, nor was defiled, but made more holy by the
mystery. And although, as the Word of God, He is present in
all things, He partakes not of them, but all things live and are
fostered by His influence. For as the sun which He created
and placed in the heavens gives its light and quickening influence
to the earth, yet is neither defiled nor obscured by earthly things,
whilst it enlightens and purifies whatever is on the earth, much
more did the most Holy Word of God make Himself known in
the body without being defiled by the body ; but, free from all
corruption. He gave life and purity to the body. " Who did no
sin, neither was guile found in His mouth." Yet He was born,
and suffered as a man, and died, that there might be every kind
of proof that He was man as well as God.

He did not offer Himself, therefore, at once to death, upon His
coming, but first exhibited His human life, and spoke His divine
word, and manifested His divine works, that when He came to His
sacrifice He might be known to be the Son of God. And when
the Jews treated Him as a man, but refused to accept Him as the
Son of God, He said to them : " If I do not the works of My
Father, believe me not. But if I do, though you will not believe
Me, believe the works : that ye may know and believe that the

328 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

Father is in Me, and I in the Father." Who that saw Him
change water into wine could doubt that He was Lord of both ?
Who that saw Him walk on the sea as on the land, and still the
angry storm by command, could question His dominion over
the elements? Who that saw Him feed the hungry multitudes
with a small quantity of bread, and beheld with astonishment
the quantity remaining, could mistake Him for any other than the
Lord of that providence which provides for all things ? Who that
beheld Him healing the sick with a word, curing the blind and
maimed with a touch, or raising up the dead with a command,
could doubt His being the Lord and Master of life and death ?

Thus far, from where we gave note of it, we have chiefly fol-
lowed the exposition of St. Athanasius,* Let us now turn back
for a moment to the state of the world when Christ appeared to
bring it back to God. We have observed in a former lecture that
three fundamental principles were to be found at the root of all
ancient religions, and that, under all the accumulations of error,
idolatry, and superstition, they were still perceptible when the
Son of God came into the world. The first is, that man had
fallen from an original state of light and happiness. The second,
that he stands in need of a divine deliverer. The third, that his
deliverance from evil must come through a substituted sacrifice.
But there is a fourth principle which equally shines, like an
original truth corrupted, through all the heathen deifications,
poetries, and mythologies, and that is the belief that human
nature is capable of union with a divine personality. The
pagans erred not in the possibility of such a union, but in
their gross misapplication of it to their imaginary gods, whom
they both deified and humanized.

But the true nature of a Divine Incarnation could not enter
the mind of man without the revelation of God. Yet so familiar
was the heathen mind with the general idea of a personal union of
divinity with humanity, that when the Incarnation of the Son of
God was preached to them, it was not this union of God with man
that shocked and startled them, so much as the humiliation and
sufferings of the Son of God, until prepared by grace to receive
the truth. We have full evidence of this, both in the controversies
which the pagans held with the Christian Fathers, and in the
examinations of the Martyrs before the pagan tribunals. Even the
• S. Athanas., De Incamatione Verbi, per totum.

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 329

pantheistic systems of Asia, dark as they were and are, through
the loss of distinction between God and His creation, and abound-
ing as they do with metaphysical monstrosities and the wildest
legends, are but gross corruptions of the older belief in the unity
of God and of a promised union of God with man. In their
dreamy reveries they confound the universal light with universal
substance, and the material world with the illusions of the imagi-
nation ; yet through all their reveries of gods and incarnations of
gods we discern a certain imperfect notion of a true God, and of
a deliverance of man through an Incarnation of God.

There are deeper things in the human soul than the natural
man can reach or understand. Created rational by the Word of
God, the light of reason is implanted by the Eternal Word, and
that upon a divine exemplar present in the Eternal Word. " All
things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing
that was made." And again St. John says : " In Him was life,
and the life was the light of men ; and the light shineth in
darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it ". There were
consequently lights and aspirations even in the souls of the better
heathens, of the cause of which they were ignorant, but which
through all their obscurations looked towards the Eternal Word, of
whom they were ignorant. For deeper than his errors, deeper
than his opinions, deeper than his mythologies, is the light of
man's reason, an image of the Eternal Reason, an image of the
Trinity. In searching, therefore, more profoundly into the soul,
such men as Parmenides, Socrates, and Plato found the testimony
of one only God, and of one Word of God, the enlightener of man.

In short, the great mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarna-
tion are found to agree with what was previously in the soul,
whilst the entrance of the light of faith expels every false religion
as disagreeing with what already exists more profoundly in the
soul. This fact was noted by St. Chrysostom in his wide
experience of pagan converts. " The pagans," he says, " incur
no dangers so long as they keep to their old institutions and
customs ; but when they abandon them for ours they expose
themselves to great dangers. Had they found what they had
been brought up in, for so many ages, to be more accordant with
their reason than our doctrines are, they would never have aban-
doned them, especially as this change exposed them to the greatest
perils. But when they found out that what they had been

330 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

brought up in was mischievous in the very nature of things, they
gave up their old customs even though death stood in the way ;
and they took refuge in the things of Christ, because they
found them to be in accordance with their nature, whilst their old
customs were contrary to their nature." *

The image of God was oppressed by error, and craved, and
still craves, for deliverance from evil, and for restoration to con-
genial light. " For the expectation of the creature," says St. Paul,
" waiteth for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature
was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of Him
that made it subject in hope : because the creature shall be
delivered from the servitude of corruption, unto the liberty of the
glory of the children of God."

To ascend to higher truth than we have yet contemplated in
the divine mystery of the Incarnation ; as it is the nature of good
to communicate good, so it is the nature of the Supreme Good to
communicate good in every way in which it can be received.
That Divine Being whose nature is goodness, and whose good-
ness is infinite, must be expected to communicate His goodness
in every possible way in which the creature is able to receive
His good, whether the good of light, of grace, of justice, or that
good which He is. He gives us all things, and with them the
truth that lights us to Himself as the end of all things. As the
first cause He has produced through His Word a most wonderful
procession of creatures, one ascending above another in excel-
lence, each capable of greater good, until the grand procession
ends in man, with God Himself for his final good. But is there
any higher order of creation imaginable, and therefore possible ?
Is there such a creation possible, that it shall resume the creation
already existing in a nobler way, and shall unite the whole in one
grand summary with God.

From the perfect artist we look for some unrivalled work of
superabounding excellence, embracing the whole creative power
of the artist, and revealing the whole motive of his mind. But
God works not, like human artists, with material appliances upon
models already existing in nature. He has the forms of all
creatable things everlastingly before Him in His Eternal Word,
and works with power, wisdom, justice, and goodness ; and to His
divine art we have no access until He reveals it in His work.

• S. J. Chrysost., Horn, 7 in Epist. i, ad Cor.

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 331

But this new and surpassing work He has both produced and
revealed. For as the first man came of nothingness, and had no
inaHenable union with God, he failed from natural weakness, and
fell from God in the false exercise of his freedom, and his whole
posterity with him. What, then, is to become of all that divine
good which was destined for the human race ? And how can
God allow Himself to be defrauded of the end of His work in
this world ? He puts forth the masterpiece of His divine art and
wisdom : He creates a new man united with the divine person of
His Eternal Word, and makes the union of man with God eter-
nally secure. As all evil has come to mankind through human
generation from Adam, He establishes a new and most pure prin-
ciple of generation by grace in this new and Divine Adam ; that
being transferred from the stock of the sinful Adam, men might
be regenerated in Him, as the true Head and Father of the human
race. And as He unites jn Himself all things heavenly and
earthly in their purity. He is destined to renew all things, and to
be the fountain of pardon, grace, and benediction to all who
accept His redemption and salvation.

The person of the Father is incommunicable, because He is
the first principle of all things. But the person of the Word is
communicable, not by ceasing to be what He eternally is, but by
assuming to Himself what by nature He is not. Yet even in this
mystery God is always God, and the creature is always the creature.
There is no mixture or confusion of the two natures of God and
man ; but the principle of their union is the divine person of the
Word. St. Thomas has explained why the Divine Word should
become man, rather than either of the other persons of the Holy
Trinity, in words as profound as they are clear. He says : "The
Divine Word hath not only a rational nature, but He hath a
certain affinity of reason with all creatures whatsoever. As an artist
has a conception of reason in his mind for whatever he produces,
so the Divine Word containeth in Himself the reasons of all God's
creatures. Wherefore as the creations of God are but a certain reali-
zation and representation of things that are embraced in the concep-
tion of the Divine Word, all things are said to be created through
the Eternal Word. And from the consideration of this truth we
can more readily understand how it became the Divine Word to
enter into personal unity with the creature in human nature."*

* S. Thoma, Sum. contra Gent., lib. iv., c. 42.

332 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

All that is required for a work so great and wonderful is a
motive worthy of God. But what motive can be more worthy
than to secure the final end of His rational creation ? What
motive more worthy than to give a new head and new life to His
intelligent creatures ? What motive more worthy than to destroy
sin and death ? What motive more worthy than to bring back
truth and grace to the inhabitants of this earth ? What motive
can be more worthy of God than to restore to humanity that lost
humility by which man may be once more subject to God? What
motive can be more worthy of the Divine Goodness than to redeem
His sinful creatures, and restore them to the friendship of their
Creator? What motive can be more worthy of God than to
restore the light of divine truth to countless intelligences, the
power of grace to their enfeebled wills, and the divine commu-
nion to their souls ? External to His essential glory, what can be
so glorious to God as this creation of such a new creature in the
person of His Son, that though in form like the old, yet in virtue
He is filled with all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, that through
Him all things may be renewed in Heaven and on earth ? What
can be more glorious to God than to compass Heaven and earth
in a work of such surpassing power and excellence as to benefit
all men and angels, and to crown His creation with inexhaustible
mercy and goodness ? " The Incarnation," says St. Augustine,
" is the supreme example of the grace of God ; it is impossible
for grace to be more graciously commended to us than in the Son
of God clothed with our humanity." " He made of Himself a
stepping," says St. Leo, "that through His humanity we might
ascend to His divinity."

Through the mystery of the Incarnation the whole work of God
is brought back to its first principle. As in the soul of Christ the
spiritual creation is summed up in perfection, and as in the body
of Christ the material creation is summed up in perfection, and as
this one example of perfect humanity has no other person than
the Eternal Word, and the Eternal Word is one with the Blessed
Trinity, all the elements of creation, recapitulated in one perfect
man, return as by a circle of life to the first principle of all
things. As Christ has purchased mankind with His blood, and
through His blood, filled with His spirit, He regenerates every man
of goodwill to Himself, so the regenerate are concorporated with
Him, and return through Christ to God. "As in Adam all die,"

THE RESTORATION OF MAN, 333

says St. Paul, " so also in Christ all shall be made alive. But
every one in his order ; the first fruits Christ, then they who are
in Christ, who have believed in His coming. Afterwards the end,
when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God and the
Father. . . . And when all things shall be subdued to Him ; then
the Son also himself shall be subjected unto Him that put all
things under His feet, that God may be all in all."

To consider the nature of the union of God with man in Christ,
there is no human person in Christ, but only a divine person, the
person of the Son of God. Yet there are two natures in Christ, the
divine and the human nature, which two natures are ever distinct
from each other. As the soul and body is one man, so God and man
is one Christ. As the body of man is united with his soul in one
person, whilst the two substances are distinct, so the humanity of
Christ is united with His divinity in one person, whilst His two
natures are distinct. As the body of man is the living instrument
of his soul to do his will, so the humanity of Christ is the living
instrument of His divine person to do His will. * Yet there are
two wills in Christ, the human will and the divine will, for each
nature has its own will, although His human will was ever obedient
to His divine will.

St. Paul has used very remarkable terms to express the hypo-
static union of the humanity of Christ with His divinity. " In
Him," he says, " it hath well pleased the Father that all fulness
should dwell." Again he says : "In whom are hidden all the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge ". And using a yet more
definite expression, he says : " In whom the whole fulness of the
Godhead dwelt bodily ". That is to say, the Godhead dwells in
the humanity of Christ, not accidentally, not by mere operation,
or by grace alone, but really and substantially. There are two
bonds of this substantial union : the spiritual bond by which the
soul of Christ is in substantial union with the Godhead, and the
corporal bond by which the body of Christ is substantially united
with the Godhead. And hence, although the body and soul of
Christ were separated from each other in His death, each was still
united with His divinity. Hence St. John says that " the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us ".

Having considered the height of this master-work of God, as it
ascends even to the bosom of the Father, let us consider its depth

* S. Thoma, Sum. contra Gent., lib. iv., c. 41.

334 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

for a moment, as it descends even to the abyss of human weak-
ness. St. Peter tells us how the angels longed to look down into
the depths of this amazing descent. " That the Almighty nature
should descend into our humble condition," says St. Gregory of
Nyssa, " is the revelation of a power incomparably greater than all
miracles, however stupendous, however high above the order of
nature. When God puts His power forth to do some great and
exalted work, we at once admit that it accords with His nature.
But when He descends to what is low and abject. He reveals to
us a most singular and overabounding power, yet a power that
meets with no hindrance, because the things done are above
nature."* Whatever work God undertakes. He destroys the
impossible. He wills, and nature yields to His will.

" It was no reproach to Him," says St. John Chrysostom, "that
He bore His own work upon Him, and made that work His
clothing, thereby conferring a great glory on that work. Even the
first man was not made until the clay came into His divine hands ;
and such a corruptible vessel cannot be transformed until it
becomes the clothing of the Divine Workman." f

In taking our human nature the Son of God became our
mediator and redeemer. " There is one God, and one mediator
of God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a
redemption for all, a testimony in due time," That He might
execute this office, He received from His Father the eternal priest-
hood. Concerning which priesthood St. Paul quotes the solemn
words of prophecy, showing it to have been already accomplished
in the eternal decrees. He says : " So Christ also did not glory
in Himself that He might be a high priest : but He that said to
Him : Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee. As He
saith in another place : Thou art a priest for ever according to the
order of Melchisedec." Now Melchisedec was both king and
high priest, his origin is left in mystery, and he offered a sacrifice
that differed from that of the Law. To him, as priest of the
most High God, Abraham made offerings in the hour of victory,
and in him all who are the children of Abraham. The priesthood
of Christ is therefore a different priesthood from that of Aaron,
which was but figurative, representative, and expectant of the
priesthood of Christ. But from the priesthood of Christ all

* S. Greg. Nyssa, Oral. Catachct., c. xxiv.
t S. J. Chrysost., Horn, in Natal. Christi.

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 335

priesthood before His time and all priesthood after His time
obtains its power and derives its efficacy.

What is the nature of this priesthood ? St. Paul will tell us :
" Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in
the things that appertain to God, that he may offer gifts and sacri-
fices for sin : who can have compassion on them that are ignorant
and err ; because he also is encompassed with infirmity ". To
adopt the clear definition of St. Isidore of Pelusium : " Priesthood
is the mediation between human and divine nature, worshipping the
divine nature and working a change in human nature". The priest-
hood of Christ is in His human nature, although it receives its
dignity and power from His divine person. For which reason
St. Paul says that " every high priest is taken from among men " ;
and that " there is one mediator of God and men, the man Christ
Jesus". Hence St. Athanasius says that "the Word, who is the
Creator, was made a high priest when He put on a created body ".*
The priesthood of Christ is therefore exercised in His human
nature although in His divine person. " For," says St. Paul, " it
was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent,
undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the
heavens f who needed not daily, as the other priests, to offer
sacrifices first for His own sin, and then for the people's : for this
He did once, in offering Himself."

The son of God is not only the high priest offering, but the
victim offered : " the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of
the world ". He differs from all other priests, in that whilst they
offer another victim for their sins, He offers Himself as the one
sinless victim for all sin. This also St. Paul reads in the eternal
decrees, as revealed through the prophets of old. " It is impos-
sible," he says, " that with the blood of oxen and goats sins should
be taken away. Wherefore when He cometh into the world He
saith : Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldest not : but Thou hast
fitted a body to me : holocausts for sin did not please Thee.
Then said I : Behold I come : in the head of the book it is
written of me : That I should do Thy will, O God. . . . Then
said I : Behold I come to do Thy will, O God. ... In the
which will, we are sanctified by the oblation of the body of Jesus
Christ once."

• S. Athanas., Orat. 2, Contra Arianos. See also Petavius, De Incarnat.,
lib. xii., c. II.

336 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

The priest and victim are one, because the innocent offered
Himself for the guilty. They are one, because when in His infinite
mercy God decreed the justification of the unjust, the atonement
for sin could only be made by one who is perfectly just, and who
has the dignity of God to repair the indignities offered to God.
He therefore gave up His human nature to humiliations, sorrows,
sufferings, and crucifixion upon the altar of the Cross, that by the
destruction of our mortal nature in Him, He might find immortal
life both for Himself and us ; and might show to us, that by suffer-
ing with Him, and dying with Him to our old and corrupted nature,
we might rise in Him to a new life. The priest and the victim are
one, because the sacrifice is a free offering of obedience unto death,
to atone for all human disobedience. The high priest and victim
is man, that He may stand in the place of His brethren, whose
sins He expiates ; He is also God, that He may give an infinite
value to the sacrifice. He entered the household of humanity that
He might repair what He had built. This truth St. Paul puts
forward with all the breadth of his inspired mind. " Consider,"
he says, " the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus,
who is faithful to Him that made Him, as was Moses in all his
house. For this man was accounted worthy of greater glory than
Moses, by so much more as He that built the house hath greater
honour than the house, for every house is built by some man.
But He that created all things is God. And Moses, indeed, was
faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things
that were to be said : but Christ as the Son in His own house :
which house are we, if we hold fast in confidence and hope to the
end." The builder of the house of humanity came into His own
house, found it ruined and defiled, and purified and restored it at
His own great cost and sacrifice. And so St. Paul concludes :
" Having therefore a great high priest that hath passed into the
heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
For we have not a high priest who cannot have compassion on
our infirmities, but one tempted in all things like as we are,
without sin."

The intrinsic character of that human sin for which Christ offered
himself a victim, consists of two forms of egotism, inordinate self-
love, or pride. The one is the pride of the soul, that swells against
God, and prefers our own hght to the light of God, our own will to
the will of God, and our own way to the way of God. The other is

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 337

that pride of the flesh which prompts the pride of the heart, and
swells in sensual and self indulgence ; fills us with delusion, and
stimulates us to a gross and lawless love of self in preference to the
love of God. Hence the Scriptures tell us that pride is the root
of all evil, and that all evil takes its beginning from pride. If the
Scriptures also tell us that covetousness is the root of all evil, it
means that avarice which draws all things covetable to the foster-
ing of our self-love and pride, rather than to employ them in the
service of their Divine Author. The proud man covets all
things to himself, making himself the end of the creature in place
of God, which is consummate pride.

But Christ saw human nature with the eyes of God, and saw
that to heal the egotism of that corrupted nature demanded
sacrifice, which is the direct and proper remedy for self-love.
From His birth to His death, He took the way opposed to self-
love, pride, sensuality, and every kind of egotism. In the fire of
suffering He made Himself a holocaust, sacrificing every human
inclination to obedience to His Father's will. Coming to destroy
the evil of self-love^ He said : " I came not to do my own will,
but the will of Him who sent me ". And again : " I do nothing
of myself, but what I see my Father doing, that do I". He
showed us the wonderful strength and freedom of will that results
from obedience. He not only obeyed His Father's will as it was
internally made known, but as it was externally manifested, even
in those human instruments that were in themselves evil, and
who by their pride and cruelty subjected Him to ignominy and
torments. His maligners, judges, and executioners represented
the malice contained in the whole sinfulness of human nature, in
its war against God ; and He suffered from sinful men for the love
of sinful men ; so that we may ever say, with too much truth, that
by our sins we have crucified the Son of God. He atones for
the excess of our pride with the excess of humility, and for the
excess of our disobedience with the excess of His obedience;
and the world beholds the astonishing spectacle of God in man
enduring all ignominy with divine patience, and sounding all the
depths of abasement. He atones for the sins of our souls with
the agonies of His own, and for the sins of our bodies with suffer-
ings unspeakable, that began with His birth and were consum-
mated in His death. " Being in the form of God, He thought it
no robbery to be equal with God : but emptied Himself, taking

338 THE RESTORATION OF MAN.

the form of a servant, being made in the Hkeness of man, and in
habit formed as a man. He humbled Himself, becoming obedient
unto death, even to the death of the Cross."

But, as St. Paul says : " God was indeed in Christ, reconciling
the world to Himself". Having redeemed us with His blood, that
blood, filled with His spirit and life, obtained a virtue to purify
all men, and to restore them to justice. Rising from the dead
and ascending on high. He carried His blood through the veil
into the sanctuary of Heaven, where He sits at the right hand of
God, making perpetual intercession for us. For " being con-
summated, He became to all who obey Him the cause of eternal
salvation ".

Our Saviour has taught us in the whole example of His life
and death, that as our fall and degradation comes of descending
from the love of God to the love of self, which can do nothing
for us, our re-ascent to God comes of sacrificing our love of
self to the love of God, which does all things for us. And
this He has taught us by word as well as by example. " He said
to all: If any one will come after Me, let him deny himself; and
take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whosoever will save
his life shall lose it ; but he that shall lose his life for My sake,
shall find it."

To sum up this discourse, and bring its lines to one point,
Christ is the head, the summing-up, and the restoration of all
things. If we listen to St. Irenaeus, that disciple of the apostolic
men will express this truth for us in vigorous terms. " One," he
says, " Christ Jesus our Lord, comes in virtue of a universal plan,
and sums up all things in Himself, as He is made both invisible
and visible. . . . Being both the Word and man, He recapitulates
all that is heavenly, spiritual, and invisible ; and hath likewise the
princedom of things visible and corporal. Taking to Himself
the primacy, and setting forth Himself as the Head of the Church,
He draws all things to Himself in their due time."* St. Paul
has portrayed this universal plan which God contemplated, and
which the Eternal Word has executed through His Incarnation,
from its beginning to its final consummation, in a passage of
unrivalled magnificence. " Giving thanks," he says, " to God
and the Father, who hath made us worthy to be partakers of the
lot of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power
• S. Irenaeus, Advers. Hares., lib. iii., c. i8.

THE RESTORATION OF MAN. 339

of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His
beloved Son. In whom we have redemption through His blood,
the remission of sins ; who is the Image of the Invisible God,
the first-born of every creature ; for in Him were all things created
in Heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or
dominions, or principalities, or powers : all things were created by
Him, and in Him ; and He is before all, and by Him all things
consist; and He is the Head of the body, the Church; who is the
Beginning, the first-born from the dead : that in all things He
may hold the primacy. Because in Him it hath well pleased
the Father that all fulness should dwell ; and through Him to
reconcile all things unto Himself, making peace through the
blood of the Cross, both as to the things on earth and the
things that are in Heaven."

LECTURE XIII.

THE REGENERATION OF MAN.
*' Who hath regenerated us unto a living hope." — i Peter i. 3.

THERE is no race of angels ; each one of them is a distinct
and separate creation. The substance of their nature is
spiritual, without the vesture of a body ; they are pure intelli-
gences, with free and unceasing activity that requires no repose.
They live by grace, and minister to the will of God. Of a nobler
creation than man, their nature is more simple and pure, their
intelligence more luminous, their fervour more ardent, as their
love is without division, their response to the Divine Will more
prompt, and their action more vigorous and steadfast. Having
entered, after trial, into their beatitude, their spirits are as pure
mirrors in receiving and reflecting the eternal truth, and their
being is most beautiful and radiant with the light and ardour of
the vision of God. They form a celestial hierarchy of many
orders and degrees of excellence, according to the dignity of each
one's creation, and the character and greatness of his gifts.
Among those myriads of spirits each one has his position, office,
dignity, and glory; and as all are filled with happiness to the
brim of capacity, there is neither rivalry nor jealousy, but the
happiness of all augments the content of each through their
mutual love in God. The higher have a divine ministry to the
lower orders, the greater lights illuminating the lesser lights, and
the greater powers giving strength to the lesser powers, God
operating all in all. In numbers innumerable those blessed
spirits hold to their order, and are communicative of their gifts,
and praise the Divine Author of their blessedness without ceasing.
But as God never repeats Himself in His works, but makes up

THE REGENERATION OF MAN 341

in diversity what is wanting in infinity, and as the angels are
not multiplied like men by generation, each angel is not only a
separate creation, but a separate species.

As compared with the angelic creation, the most wonderful
thing in human nature is that corporate unity of all men in one
species which results from the generation of all men from one.
As the whole tree and all its branches are virtually contained in
the root, the whole race of mankind was virtually contained in
Adam. The very terms mankind and the human race, which have
their representatives in all languages, express this unity of the
human species. To the angelic intelligences this plan of human
creation must have appeared most wonderful, especially when
they beheld that to each individual body, as it came into existence,
a separate spiritual soul was created.

In providing for the propagation of the human race from one,
the Almighty contemplated the corporate unity of the human race
for reasons most profound. This corporate unity of mankind is
the cause of many virtues which otherwise could not exist. In
that unity God laid the deep foundations of the family life, with
Its beautiful subordination, in the authority of parents and the
obedience of children, which trains them for obedience to God.
In the creation ot the sexes, the wisdom of God provided for a
high moral union to perfect the corporal unity of mankind. He
took woman from man, and then reunited them in the divine
institution of marriage. He gave to man the stronger mind and
greater force, to be the guide, support, and protection of the
woman. He gave to woman the stronger heart, and finer
sensibility, tenderness, and patience, to be the consolation of
man. The man protects the woman, the woman gives her piety
to the man. Each sex, again, exercises its special influence in
the forming of their offspring. The man represents the authority,
the woman the love, of God ; the one enfolds the child's heart
with her affections, the other rules its waywardness with fear. Each
is the complement of the other, and when their union is formed
in God according to His divine institution, that union is the com-
pletion of humanity in all its attributes and qualities. The govern-
ment of the household by the father, when he governs by the
law of God, is an image of God's paternal government ; and the
obedience of the family in the fear and love of God is an image
of the service which is due to God from all humanity.

342 THE REGENERATION OF MAN.

In the unity and brotherhood of mankind God has also pro-
vided for the social life and for the government of men, and for
the social and political virtues which spring from that universal
brotherhood. He who governs his brethren according to God's
will and law is the servant of his brethren, as well as the servant
of God ; and they who obey him who governs for conscience'
sake, obey God, and yet are free in their obedience, as being of
one blood, and therefore equal in the sight of God. In the
corporate unity of the human race provision was also made for
that virtue of kindliness from man to his fellow-man which is
founded in our natural kinship, and for that thoughtfulness for
each other which receives the beautiful name of humanity, as
being founded in the community of mankind.

Although the bodies of men are multiplied and individualized
through generation, the soul united to each body is not propa-
gated, but is separately created to each body that is propagated.
Hence our mother Eve spoke literally, as well as prophetically,
when at the birth of her first-born she said : " I have conceived a
man through God ". For whilst the body of the child was born of
Adam, the soul came to that body from the creative hand of God.
It is this consciousness of giving birth to an immortal soul that
fills the mind of every devout mother with awe and wonder when
she brings forth her first-born into the world. So intimately,
however, are the body and soul united in the composition of one
person ; so constant is the action and reaction of soul on body,
and body on soul, that each imparts its condition to the other ;
so that the body of sin propagated from the fallen Adam imparts
its culpability to the whole person of man. Unless, therefore,
that culpability be eradicated by regeneration into a better
humanity, it remains in the same condition.

But in constituting the human race in one common humanity,
the Almighty Wisdom had yet higher objects in view. The in-
corporeal angels have no corporate union ; their union is in the
light, grace, and glory of God, and their communion with each
other is in the charity of God. But as men are created lower
than the angels ; as their spiritual being is united to a marvellous
organization derived from the material substances of this world,
to which their souls impart life, God created them in the unity
of one blood, as a natural foundation for that unity of mind and
heart which is the work of His gifts. Had all men remained in

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 343

grace and innocence, their common humanity would have pro-
vided a natural basis for the unity of their minds in one truth
through one faith ; and of the unity of their hearts in one hope,
and one love of God, and of each other, for God's sake ; as also
for their unity in one common worship, adoring God, and giving
Him thanks together. In short, God designed that all men
should be of one mind in His Eternal Word of Truth, and of
one spirit in His Holy Spirit, as they are of one body, through
propagation from one common father of their race.

Such was the divine plan. But, alas ! how grievously has the
unity of mankind been broken asunder ! How perversely has that
unity been thrown into disorder through the weakness of human
wills, and through that perverted love of self that puts pride in
the place of charity, and revolt in the place of obedience ! This
pride has not only separated man from God, but man from man,
breaking up the concert of humanity, after it had lost its harmony
with God, and throwing men into endless discords. The propa-
gation of the sinful Adam is the propagation of humanity in self-
division, in the warring of man against his conscience, and in
divisions and contentions of brethren against brethren, that never
cease to distract and afflict the great family of man.

In His all-present knowledge God foresaw those evils of division
and dissension, as well as the other calamities of the human race,
and He permitted them, that from their bitterness man might learn
the misery of departing from God, and might find out from his
weakness the need he has of God. Nothing more strikingly
proves what rents and wounds have been made in human nature
by its fall than those wars and contests between men of the same
flesh and blood, despite of all the provision made in the economy
of our nature for the unity of its members. Sin has not only
brought division into each individual man, but that inward divi-
sion has burst out into open divisions among the whole human
family : divisions of mind, divisions of heart, divisions of nations,
divisions of sects, and divisions of interests.

But God, who sees all things past, present, and to come in
one ever present because eternal view, ordained the unity of the
human family from one stock and blood, that it might profit in
the end. The order of communicating grace provided for the
angels would not have suited man ; but God adopted the whole
order of His grace for the whole order of our nature ; and

344 THE REGENERATION OF MAN

took up this very principle of generation into the supernatural
order, united it with the Divine Man, and made it the principle of
regeneration. He who by the Holy Spirit was born of the Virgin
Mary in the person of the Son of God, became a new principle
of generation, in whom all men have redemption, and from whom
all receive the grace of redemption who are regenerated in Him.
Through the union of His pure and sinless nature with the Eternal
Word, filled with grace and life, and using the sacrament of baptism
as the visible and assured means of His divine operation, the chil-
dren born of Adam are born anew to Christ, upon which He takes
possession of them with His sacred and atoning blood, takes away
their injustice, and gives them His justice. Through this divine
principle of regeneration, Christ propagates Himself; as the true
Head and Regenerator of the human race, He excorporates us
from the body of the old Adam, and incorporates us into His own
body, making us the children of His blood and spirit.

Every Christian knows that he has received his evil from one
man and his good from another. For there are but two men ;
there never were but two men ; there never can be but two original
men, the old Adam and the new Adam. The Apostle calls the
first Adam " a figure of Him that is to come " ; for as the old Adam
was the first head and father of mankind, Christ is the second
head and father of mankind, Adam became to his children the
original source of injustice and death ; Christ is to His children the
source of justice and life. Adam is the principal head of dis-
obedience ; Christ the principal head of obedience. St. Paul draws
the contrast between these two heads of the human race in the
following terms : " The first Adam was made a living soul ; the
last Adam a quickening spirit. Yet that was not first which is
spiritual but that which is natural ; afterwards that which is
spiritual. The first man was of the earth, earthly ; the second
man from Heaven, heavenly. Such as is the earthly, such also
are the earthly ; and such as is the heavenly, such also are they
that are heavenly. Therefore, as we have borne the image of
the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.

After showing that every man must bear either the earthly image
of the earthly Adam or the heavenly image of the spiritual Adam,
the Apostle contrasts the death of sin derived from Adam with
the grace of life derived from Christ : " If by the offence of one
many have died, much more the grace of God and the gift in

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 345

grace of one Man Jesus Christ hath abounded unto many.
. . . For if by one man's offence death reigned through one, much
more they who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift, and of
justice, shall reign in life through One, Jesus Christ. Therefore as
by the offence of one, unto all men to condemnation : so also by
the justice of One, unto all men to justification of life. For as
by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners ; so also
by the obedience of One, many shall be made just."

After the contrast between the first and the second head and
father of mankind, St. Paul brings in a chain of lucid com-
parisons to show how we are transferred from Adam to Christ ;
how we are excorporated from the first man and incorporated with
the second. As it would have profited us but little to be born of
Adam if we had not been redeemed by Christ, so even the redemp-
tion of Christ would not have profited us unless that redemption
were conveyed into us through our regeneration into His body.
This regeneration is our second birth, of which Christ said to
Nicodemus : " Amen, amen, I say to thee : except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith to
Him : How can a man be born again when he is old ? Can he
enter a second time into his mother's womb, and he born again ?
Jesus answered : Amen, amen, I say to thee : except a man be
born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God. That which is bom of flesh, is flesh ; and that
which is born of spirit, is spirit."

The first argument of St, Paul in explanation of our transfer by
regeneration from Adam to Christ is taken from the expressive
signification of the act of baptism : " Unless a man be born again
of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of
Heaven ". Baptism is the burial of the man in the water and the
raising him out of the water in which he was buried, in the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. This burial
in the water expresses the death of the man to the sinful Adam
through the death of Christ ; whilst his rising again out of the
water expresses the new life that he receives from Christ through
the operation of the Holy Spirit. The action of the Holy Spirit
Christ Himself explains in His continued words to Nicodemus:
"Wonder not that I said to thee, you must be born again.
The Spirit breatheth where He will, and thou hearest His voice,
but thou knowest not whence He cometh and whither He goeth :

346 THE REGENERATION OF MAN

so is every one that is bom of the Spirit." Again, the Apostle
calls this regeneration a transplanting, because as the tree that is
transplanted from one soil to another dies to the first and lives
in the second where it is buried anew, so in his regeneration
the man is transplanted from Adam to Christ, These are
St. Paul's words : " How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any
longer therein ? Know ye not that all we who are baptized in
Christ Jesus are baptized in His death? For we are buried
together with Him by baptism into death : that as Christ is risen
from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also may walk in
newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the
likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His
resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with
Him, that the body of sin may be destroyed, and that we may
serve sin no longer. For he that is dead is justified from sin.
For if we be dead in Christ, we believe that we shall live also
together with Christ. Knowing that Christ, rising again from the
dead, dieth now no more, death shall no more have dominion
over Him. For in that He died to sin, He died once ; but in
that He liveth. He liveth unto God. So do you also reckon
yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ
Jesus our Lord."

Again the Apostle compares the transfer of the regenerated from
the body of Adam to the body of Christ to a second marriage after
the first has been dissolved by death. Speaking of the law of
Moses, a law which revealed sin, and provoked it, though it did
nothing for its remission, he says: "The woman that hath a
husband, whilst her husband liveth, is bound to the law. But if
her husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
. . . Therefore, my brethren, you also are become dead to the
law by the body of Christ; that you may belong to another,
who is risen again from the dead, that we may bring forth fruit to
God."

In another place St. Paul compares the stock of Adam to the
wild and unfruitful olive tree, and Christ to the good and fertile
olive, and shows how in our regeneration we are taken as a branch
firom the one, and are engrafted in the other. Speaking to the con-
verted Gentiles of the unconverted Jews, he says : " And they also,
if they abide not in unbelief, shall be grafted in. For God is able
to graft them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the wild olive

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 347

tree, which is natural to thee, and, contrary to nature, wert grafted
into the good olive tree, how much more shall they, that are the
natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree." To show,
again, that from Christ, as the root and stem, all the richness of His
fruitful life flows into the engrafted branches, the Apostle says :
" If the first fruit be holy, so is the lump also ; and if the root be
holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken,
and thou being a wild olive tree, art engrafted in them, and art
made partaker of the root and of the fatness of the olive tree,
boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest
not the root, but the root thee."

As St. Paul compares Christ with the olive tree, Christ compares
Himself with the vine: "I am the vine, you the branches; he that
abideth in Me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit : for
without Me you can do nothing ". Thus in the water of regene-
ration we enter into His death, and rise again in His life : as He
is the fruitful olive, we are engrafted on Him : as He is the vine,
we are embranched in Him as the root and stem of our life.

Inexhaustible in the diversity of his illustrations, St. Paul again
compares our transition from Adam to Christ to the casting away
of an old garment that we may be clothed with one that is new.
For although Christ has atoned for our sins, and has purchased for
us the grace of life; although with Him there is merciful forgiveness,
and with Him plentiful redemption ; yet all this is with Him, and
not with us, until we come to Him, and accept freely with faith the
sacrament of regeneration, by which we are transferred from the
sinful body of Adam to the glorious body of Christ, that so we may
belong to His kingdom. Hence St. Paul exhorts those whom he
instructs : " If so be that you have heard Him, and have been
taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off", according to
the former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according
to the desires of error : and put ye on the new man, who, according
to God, is created in justice and holiness of truth ". How is this
transformation accomplished ? St. Paul tells us : " Ye have been
baptized : ye have put on Christ ". As he says more explicitly in
another place : " When the goodness and kindness of God our
Saviour appeared, not by the works of justice, which we have done,
but according to His mercy He saved us, by the laver of regene-
ration and renovation of the Holy Ghost, whom He hath poured
upon us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour: that being

348 THE REGENERATION OF MAN.

justified by His grace, we may be heirs according to the hope of
eternal life ".

This, again, is another of St. Paul's illustrative arguments, to
which he often refers, that by our new birth in Christ through the
regeneration of the Holy Spirit, through whom, as Christ was
generated into our human nature, we are regenerated into Christ,
we are made joint-heirs with Him of eternal life. "For whosoever
are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you
have not received the spirit of bondage again in fear ; but you have
received the spirit of adoption of sons, whereby we cry Abba
(Father). For the Spirit Himself gives testimony to our spirit,
that we are the sons of God. And if sons, heirs also — heirs indeed
of God and joint-heirs with Christ — yet so if we suffer with Him,
that we may be glorified with Him."

We may sum up what has been thus far said in the words of St.
Leo the Great : " If the Word had not been made flesh and dwelt
among us, if the Creator had not descended into one common life
with His creature, if He had not brought back the old humanity to
a new beginning, death would have reigned from Adam even to the
end, and an irrevocable condemnation would have rested upon all
men. The very condition of their birth would have caused all
men to perish. Of all the sons of men the Lord Jesus was alone
born innocent, because He alone was conceived without defiling
cupidity. He was made a man of our race, that we might be made
the consorts of His divine nature. That origin which He took
from the Virgin's womb. He deposited in the font of baptism : what
was given to the mother was given to the water : that same power
from on high, the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, that caused
Mary to bring forth our Saviour, causes the water to regenerate the
believer. What could there have been provided more capable of
healing the sick, of enlightening the blind, and of giving life to the
dead, than the cure of the wounds of pride by the medicine of
humility ! It was by his neglecting the commands of God that
Adam brought the condemnation upon us that is due to sin : and
it was by His being made under the law that Jesus brought back
to us the liberty of justice. It was by obeying the devil even to
the extent of prevarication that Adam deserved that we should die
in him ; and it was by obeying the Father even to the Cross that
Jesus obtained that we all should live in Him. It was by ambi-
tionating angelic honours that Adam lost the dignity of his nature:

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 349

and it was by taking upon Him our infirm condition that Jesus
raised up those souls to the heavenly places for whose sake He
descended into hell. It was said to Adam, because of his pride :
" Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return ". But it was said
to Jesus, because of His humility : " Sit Thou at My right hand,
until I make Thy enemies the footstool of Thy feet ". *

As there are two heads of mankind, there are also two bodies,
each cleaving to its own head, into which the human race is
divided. The one is concorporated with Adam, the other with
Christ. These are the two cities or kingdoms, so often described in
the Holy Scriptures as the kingdom of this world and the kingdom
of God. This is the one great division of the human race, as God
beholds the human family. Of these two cities or kingdoms St.
Augustine wrote the history from the creation to his time, in his
great and arduous work of "The City of God". As his chief object
was to instruct the children of this world concerning the ways of
God in the world, he began that history, as he tells us, with a
sense of dismay, because he knew how hard it is to persuade the
proud that the great force of virtue lies hidden in humility. For
the city of this world takes its rise from pride, whilst the city
of God is founded in humility. Christ as God in humiliation has
founded the city of God : Satan the author of pride has founded
the city of this world. In the city of God, the truth, the law, and
the love of God prevail ; but in the city of the world it is error
and injustice and contention that have the sway. The one is called
the city of Jerusalem, where the people of God live in unity and
peace. The other is called the city of Babylon, because it is the
city of division and confusion. Christ rules the one through His
servants ; Satan rules the other through his bondsmen. The aims
of these two cities are as far asunder as Heaven is from earth ; for
the inhabitants of the one seek God, and are but as travellers from
this world to a better ; whilst the inhabitants of the other confine
their views to this world, and care not to look for the better world
to come. The one rests in faith upon the revelations of God, as
upon a rock of truth unchangeable; the other floats upon the
opinions of this world, as upon banks of sand that are ever shifting
and uncertain. In this world the populations of these two cities are
visibly mingled together, although invisibly they are separated.
But in the world to come they shall be for ever separated, as the
* S. Leo, Serm. 5 in Nativ. Domini.

350 THE REGENERATION OF MAN.

justice of God shall separate them. But whilst they are in this
world there is a frequent migration from one city to the other.
For there are those who pass from the earthly to the heavenly
city, but who are weak in faith, and fall back again. There are
others who are visibly in the city of God, but their hearts are with
the city of the world. And there are others who, although visibly
in the city of the world, have their hearts with the city of God.
As each of these cities is formed of men who have a body and a
soul, a visible presence and an invisible spirit, in the visible
kingdom of God are those who are visibly united with her, and
openly profess her faith and obedience; but the just alone
belong to the soul of God's kingdom, and shall alone inherit that
kingdom after the great judicial division of mankind.

If we look into the interior spirit and life of these two kingdoms,
nothing can be more unlike, nothing more opposite, than they
are to each other. From a deep experience of both of them,
St. Augustine has drawn their contrast in a celebrated passage.
Two loves, he says, have founded these two cities. The love of self,
carried to contempt of God, has made the earthly city ; the love
of God, carried to contempt of self, has made the heavenly city.
The one, therefore, glories in herself, the other in God ; the one
seeks glory from men, the other puts her glory in God, who is the
witness of their conscience. The one lifts up her head in self-
glorification ; the other says to God with an humble soul, " Thou,
O God, art my glory, and the uplifter of my head ". The earthly
city is moved by the lust of power and dominion, and rejoices
when her chiefs subdue the nations ; but in the heavenly city all
serve each other in mutual charity. Those who preside consult in
charity, and those who are subject obey in charity. Whilst the earthly
city puts her confidence in her own strength, the heavenly city
seeks her strength from God. The wise men of the earthly city
are wise in their own prudence, and live according to man ; they
seek the goods of the body, or of the intellect, or both together.
If they know God, they do not glorify Him as God, nor give Him
thanks ; but they become vain in their thoughts, and their hearts
are darkened. But in the heavenly city men know no greater
wisdom than faith and piety, and the worship of the true God after
the manner which He prescribes ; and they expect their reward
with all the saints and angels, that " God may be all in all". *
* S. August., De Civitate Dei, lib. xiv., c. 28.

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 351

These two cities, vdth their empires, date from the beginning
of mankind. No sooner has Adam fallen than Christ appears
in the promise of redemption. In the two first sons of Adam
the two kingdoms become visible. In Abel and his children
the kingdom of faith arises ; in Cain and his descendants appears
the kingdom of this world. Abel worships God, offering the
sacrifice of the lamb, expressive of redemption through the blood
of Christ ; Cain offers but the fruits of the earth. Abel offers
the sacrifice of obedience ; Cain chooses an oblation of his own
devising. In the person of Cain the city of this world already
persecutes the city of God in the person of Abel, and this
persecution is destined to continue through all time, until the two
kingdoms are for ever separated. It is not without a profound
reason that this conflict between the children of Adam is re-
corded in the beginning of the Holy Scriptures, where the child of
injustice inflicts, and the child of justice suffers with patience ;
nor is it without profound reason that the Scriptures exhibit this
conflict between the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of
God, going on with ever-increasing intensity, as prophetically
summed up in the closing book of the Scriptures.

The kingdom of God is the Church of Christ, ever one and
the same from the promise of redemption in Paradise to the end
of time. "Christ yesterday," says St. Paul, "to-day, and He is the
same for ever." He is the object and end of the patriarchal
worship from Abel to Abraham. He is contemplated in the
divine deliverance of Israel from Egypt. He is the end of the law,
and of the sacrifices. He is contemplated in the prophetical teach-
ings from Abraham to John the Baptist. One dispensation is
added to another, the latter enlarging upon the former, and each
more wealthy in the expression of Christ, until Christ appears, and
all those figures vanish like shadows before the sun in presence
of the reality. As the Church sings in the ordination of her
priests : " The Holy Lord, Almighty Father and Eternal God,
through whom all things are brought onwards, and by whom all
things are strengthened, doth always enlarge the growth of
rational nature with greater increase unto better things ". As God
first creates the elements of things, and then by His provident
wisdom advances them with time to their better state ; so in the
spiritual order of good which He provides for rational natures.
He unfolds one dispensation after another, each the amplification

352 THE RE GENERA TION OF MAN.

of the former, until the whole divine plan is revealed in its magni-
ficent mercy, and brought to the perfection of good. But Christ,
the Deliverer and True Father of mankind, is the beginning and
the end of all.

This has been admirably expressed by St. Augustine : " What-
ever," he says, "appeared in a sacred and mystical manner to the
Fathers in angelic miracles were figures of this sacrament, of this
sacrifice, of this priest, of this God ; these and all that the Fathers
did were figures of Him before He was sent and made of a woman,
that every creature might speak in facts concerning the One to
come, who is the salvation of all who are restored from death.
As we had turned with wicked impiety from the One True and
Supreme God to rebellion and discord, we fell from Him who is
One to many things, were divided by many things, and clove to
many things ; it therefore became needfjl that, through the mer-
ciful command of God, many things should proclaim that One,
and that the One should not come until many things had pro-
claimed Him, that they might be the witnesses of His coming, and
that when at last we come to that One, we may be unburdened
of those many things." *

Of those many things that spoke of Christ, the one that spoke
most clearly and universally was the sacrifice of the lamb. Christ
is called " the Lamb that was sacrificed from the foundation of
the world ". Abel offered the lamb in sacrifice, and became the
victim of his faith. Noe after his deliverance from the flood
offered sacrifices of all clean animals ; and God gave him the
promise : " I will no more destroy every living soul as I have
done ". Abraham prepares to sacrifice his beloved son at God's
command. God accepts his will, and a ram is offered in his
place. The Israelites in Egypt sacrifice a lamb in each house,
as God commands ; their doorposts are stained with its blood, and
the destroying angel passes over them uninjured. The Paschal
Lamb is the great central institution of the Law of Moses.
The Prophet Isaias saw Christ in these sacrifices, and these
sacrifices in Christ. '^The Lord hath laid upon Him the
iniquities of us all. He was offered because it was His own
will, and he opened not His mouth. He shall be led as a
sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before
the shearer, and He shall not open His mouth. He was
• S. August., De Trinitate, lib, iv., c. 7.

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 353

taken away from distress and judgment : who shall declare His
generation ? ''

St. John the Baptist, the predestined connection between the Old
Testament and the New, fulfils his divine office first by a figura-
tive baptism, then by pointing Christ out to men in these words :
" Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him that taketh away the
sins of the world ". After the Lamb of God was slain, and many
had been purified in His blood, St. Peter reminds the faithful
of His kingdom that " you were not redeemed with corruptible
things as gold or silver, from your vain conversation of the tradition
of your fathers : but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb
unspotted and undefiled ; foreknown indeed before the foundation
of the world, but manifested in the last times for us ". The chief
of Apostles then reminds them how they became partakers in
this precious blood : " Being born again, not of corruptible seed,
but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, who liveth and reigneth
for ever ". Finally, in the closing Book of Scriptures, St. John
the Evangelist, rapt in spirit, beholds the golden altar before the
throne of God, and upon the altar the Lamb standing as it were
for ever slain ; and the Lamb unseals the book of mysteries, and
sends forth the seven spirits of God into all the earth. Before
Him ascends the incense of prayer from all the saints whom He
has redeemed ; around Him are the angels and the elders of His
Church. Before Him in their orders are the thousands of thou-
sands whom He has redeemed from the twelve tribes of Israel,
and from every tongue, and tribe, and nation ; and they sing the
canticle of God and of the Lamb. With a voice like the sound
of many waters they sing : *' The Lamb that was slain is worthy
to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and
honour and glory, and benediction". And the Lamb in the
midst of the throne " shall rule them, and shall lead them to the
waters of life, and shall wipe away every tear from their eyes ".
And " He was clothed with a garment sprinkled with blood, and
His name is The Word of God ".

Such is the kingdom of God. Such is the Church of Christ.
All who are generated into Christ are generated into His king-
dom. It is composed of all the angels who stood firm through
the grace of the Eternal Word, their mediator with the Father ;
and of all just and faithful men and women who either lived by
the grace of Christ, believing and trusting to the promise, before

23

354 THE REGENERATION OF MAN.

He came into the world, or who have lived by His faith and
grace in His kingdom since He came into the world j each
according to the dispensation granted to their times, whether in
the Church expecting Christ, or in the Church possessing Christ.

The wonderful descriptions of the celestial kingdom, that
conclude each period of the conflict of Christ's Church on earth,
grow more magnificent in the Apocalypse, as each epoch sends
its contribution of martyrs, confessors, virgins, and saints of every
class, to fill up the heavenly places, and swell the eternal chorus.
The eternal rewards are promised, with ever-renewed conflict, to
them who overcome their adversary by the conquest of them-
selves, and who account this life as nothing in comparison with
the life to come.

But before the price of our redemption was paid, the gates of
Heaven were closed against mankind. Even the just men of the
former times looked to God with fear and trembling, and went
down in sorrow to the grave, knowing that their spirits must abide
in a region of exile until their Divine Deliverer should come.
They felt, as they said, that they should not praise God in the
land of the living. They called their place of detention, the
Hebrews Sheol^ the Greeks Hades — that is, the lower regions, —
the Latins Limbus — that is, the region bordering on Heaven.
Christ Himself called it the bosom of Abraham, not the bosom
of God, as being the place where the father of the faithful awaited
in expectancy, with all the children of faith and justice. The
Hades of Homer, and of other pagan writers, and that thirst of
the departed spirits for sacrificial blood, presents an evident link
of common tradition with the Sheol of God's people.

But St. Peter tells us, that whilst the body of Christ was dead
on the Cross, His living spirit went down and preached to the
captives who were in prison, even from the days of Noe. And
St. Paul tells us, that before He ascended to Heaven, Christ first
descended into the lower regions of the earth, and made captives
of those who dwelt there in captivity. The Apostle speaks of
the unity of the whole Church as the one body of Christ in one
spirit, through His gifts ; and to show that the Church of the
former ages is one body with the Church of Christ, he says :
" Wherefore He saith : Ascending on high. He led captivity
captive ; He gave gifts to men. Now that He ascended, what is
it, but because He also descended first into the lower regions of

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 355

the earth ? He that descended is the same also that ascended
above all the heavens, that He might fill all things." This is that
descent into hell which is expressed in the Apostles' Creed ; not
into the everlasting hell of which we have such awful descriptions
in the Prophets, but into the limbus of the Fathers. Of this
descent and deliverance we have magnificent descriptions in the
prophetic writings under the figure of nearer events.

The Spirit of Christ went down thither from His Cross, broke
the iron bars, and burst the brazen gates asunder. The whole
region was stirred at His coming, and the mighty ones arose
from their seats ; for the light of the long-looked-for presence of
their Redeemer shone upon them, and they heard the voice of
their Deliverer. Listen to the ghostly dialogue : —

** Who is this that cometh from Edom with garments stained
from Bosra ; this beautiful One in His robe, walking in the great-
ness of His strength ?

" I that speak justice, and am a defender to save.

" Why, then, is Thy apparel red, and Thy garments like theirs
who tread the wine-press ?

" I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the Gentiles
there is not a man with Me. I have trampled them down in My
indignation, and have trodden them down in My wrath, and their
blood is sprinkled upon My garments, and all My apparel is
stained. For the day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year
of My redemption is come. I looked about, and there was none
to help ; I sought, and there was none to give aid ; and My
own arm hath saved for Me, and My indignation itself hath
helped Me.

" I will remember the tender mercies of the Lord, the praise
of the Lord for all the things that the Lord hath bestowed on us,
and for the multitude of His good things to the house of Israel,
which He hath given them according to His kindness, and
according to the multitude of His mercies.

" And He said : Surely they are My people, children that will
not deny ; so He became their Saviour. In all their affliction He
was not troubled, and the angel of His presence saved them. In
His love and in His mercy He redeemed them, and He carried
them, and lifted them up all the days of old." *

And they said : " Come, and let us return to the Lord ; for
* Isaias, c. Ixiii.

3S6 THE REGENERATION OF MAN.

He hath taken us, and He will heal us. He will strike, and He
will cure us. He will revive us after two days ; on the third day
He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. We shall
know, and we shall follow on, that we may know the Lord. His
going forth is prepared as the morning light, and He will come to
us as the early and the latter rain to the earth." *

On the third day His spirit arose from the limbus of the
Fathers, attended by all the spirits of the just, and left it empty.
Many of those Saints arose and appeared to numbers of people in
Jerusalem. His spirit united with His body, and as the Apostles
significantly say, " He arose again from the dead," because His
first rising was with the spirits of the just from the lower regions
of the earth.

On the fortieth day He ascended into Heaven with all that
glorious company. Now are the angelic hosts to meet their
brethren from the earth, whom, through the long ages, they have
served ; whom they have helped in all their combats. And King
David, on his prophetic harp, had mused upon this rapturous
moment : —

" This is the generation of them that seek Him ; of them that
seek the face of the God of Jacob.

" Lift up your gates, O ye princes ; and be ye lifted up, O
eternal gates, and the King of Glory shall enter in.

" Who is this King of Glory ?

"The Lord who is strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in
battle.

" Lift up your gates, O ye princes ; and be ye lifted up, O
eternal gates, and the King of Glory shall enter in.

" Who is this King of Glory ?

" The Lord of Hosts ; He is the King of Glory."

Christ carries His blood through the veil into the eternal
sanctuary, and behold He stands for us upon the golden altar
before the throne of God ; the Lamb for ever slain for us ; the
Victim for ever pleading for us ; the High Priest for ever inter-
ceding for us. And around Him, and before Him, is that great
multitude, whose voice is as many waters and as great thunders,
as they sing the canticle of God and the Lamb: "Thou art
worthy, O Lord, to take the book, and to open the seals thereof ;
because Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God, in Thy

• OieCy c. vi.

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 357

blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation,
and hast made us to our God a kingdom and priests, and we shall
reign on the earth ".

We here contemplate the marvellous unity of the Church in
Heaven, as its countless members centre their spirits upon the
throne of God and the altar of the Lamb. The whole heavenly
part of St. John's Revelations is a picture of this unity. But there
is also an earthly history in these Revelations, running from the
apostolic times to the end of the world ; where amidst the
unceasing conflicts between the kingdom of God and the kingdom
of Satan, between the Church and the ungodly world, we are made
to see another order of union, a union of a most intimate kind
between the Church in Heaven and the Church on earth. We are
made to see that all the victories of the Church in the world are
achieved through the blood and the grace of Christ. We behold
the angels and saints intensely interested in the combats of their
brethren on earth. We see the angels descending in the ministry
of God, and confronting the adversaries of God's servants. This
is but a continuance in the Church of what we find throughout the
older Scriptures, and in the records of these later times St. John
often adopts the language of the older prophets in describing the
combats of the Church with the world, as if to show that they are
only now having their final fulfilment.

As the kingdom of this world is severed from the unitive body
of God's revealed truth, and from the unitive grace whereby the
heart cleaves to that all-uniting truth, the world is necessarily
broken up into endless divisions ; and whilst it bears the stains and
wrinkles of concupiscence upon its brow, it bears on its features
the marks of selfish thought and of every varying opinion. Self-
love, self-opinion, self-interest, and self-exaltation are the motive-
powers that move the world in opposition to the kingdom of
God. Self-love in all its vicious forms is the enemy of God, the
adversary of His truth, the corrupter of justice, and the enemy of
social unity. Pride resists God, and dissolves all unity ; whether
by heresy it sets up man's opinion against the unity of faith ; or
by schism it sets up self-will against obedience to authority ;
or by ambition it stirs up nation against nation ; or by iniquity it
divides the man against his conscience.

But the Church of God is one and undivided throughout the
universe of Heaven, earth, and the region under the earth, where

358 THE REGENERATION OF MAN

just souls are purified for their entrance into Heaven. And this
union of every part of the Church St. Paul expresses in the
following sentence: "That in the name of Jesus every knee should
bow, of those things that are in Heaven, on earth, and under the
earth. And that every tongue should confess that the Lord Jesus
Christ is in the glory of God the Father." The unity of God's
kingdom rests upon the unity of God, upon the unity of Christ,
upon the unity of His body which is His Church, and upon the
unity of the means of redemption, which He has prescribed, as He
alone has power to prescribe. The Father is one, the Word of
the Father is one, the Holy Spirit is one ; and all these three are
one. Truth is one for all minds, justice is one for all wills, the
authority of God is one for the obedience of all souls ; Christ is
one, His doctrine is one, His body is one, His sacrament of
regeneration into His body is one. One is the supreme end of
man, and one is the way to that supreme end. Christ Himself has
said: "I am the way, the truth, and the life". One, therefore,
and only one, is the kingdom of God on earth, that universal
kingdom which Daniel so clearly predicted and described, and of
which Christ declared that the unity of its members should always
be the proof of His presence; one on earth and one with the
kingdom in Heaven, where Christ reigns all in all. The unity of
faith in the Church rests upon the unity of that truth and of that
unitive grace which Christ has deposited in her bosom, and upon
His promise to abide with her, as the life in the body, even to
the ending of the world.

What is Christ ? Christ is all that He is by His divine and
human nature ; all that He has spoken of truth ; all that He has
wrought of justice; all that He has done for our redemption. He
is all that He has organized of power and ordained of authority
to teach His word, to govern His kingdom, and to minister His
grace through the sacraments which He has established. He is all
that He imparts of regeneration, pardon, light, and grace, and con-
solation, to all who receive those gifts from Him. All that emanates
from Christ is Christ. To accept a divided truth, a divided justice,
a divided kingdom of God, is to accept a divided Christ, which
is impossible. When the Corinthians divided themselves into
parties, marked by the names of their several teachers, St. Paul
rebuked them in these terms : " Now this I say that every one of
you saith: I indeed am of Paul; and I am of Apollo; and I am of

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 359

Cephas; and I am of Christ. Is Christ divided ? Was Paul crucified
for you ? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul ? " We must
accept the whole Christ ; but this is to accept His whole truth, all
that He has instituted, and all He has ordained ; not as we choose
to fancy them, nor upon any man's opinion of them, but from the
authority of that kingdom or Church in which He has deposited
them, and which He has commanded to keep them, or we neither
have faith in Christ, nor can we be members of His kingdom.

Christ organized His kingdom in a visible unity, conspicuous to
all men, and He declared that " a kingdom divided against itself
cannot stand ". He made the entrance into that kingdom through
the door of a visible sacrament. He organized its authorities in
subordination to one supreme authority established in one person.
To that one He gave the keys of power. To that one He com-
mitted the chief and universal charge. That one He made the
foundation upon which the structure of the Church was built ; and
to that one He promised that the gates of hell should never prevail
against what was built upon him. He ever takes the lead,
and his successors have ever claimed, have ever exercised the
apostolate, have ever been recognized and obeyed as the Vicars
of Christ. There has never been anything like this compendious
and comprehensive unity in the world besides. Nothing in human
nature can explain it. It is the key-stone of that unity of Christ's
body which He commanded to be, and for which He prayed.
What have we said that St. Paul has not said more compendiously :
" One body and one spirit, as you are called in the one hope of
your calling. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in us all."

There is nothing on which the great Apostle has been more
explicit or emphatic than the organic unity of the Church or body
of Christ. He says : ** As the body is one, and hath many members ;
and all the members of the body, whereas they are many, are one
body ; so also is Christ. For in one spirit were we all baptized
into one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, whether bond or free : and
in one spirit we have all been made to drink ?" In the same chapter
the Apostle enlarges upon the mutual connection and dependence
of the many members of this body, and of the one spirit that
breathes through the whole ; and he thus concludes : " That there
may be no schism in the body, but the members might be mutually
careful one for another. And if one member suffers anything, all

36o THE REGENERATION OF MAN.

the members suffer with it ; or, if one member glory, all the mem-
bers rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members
of member." That is to say, the faithful of the Church of Corinth
were members of a member of the universal Church. To the
Ephesians the Apostle brings out the organic unity of the Church
in a yet more striking way. After speaking of the " one body and
one spirit," and the rest, as we have recently quoted, he thus
explains the construction of this unity : " He that descended is the
same also that ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all
things. And He gave some to be Apostles, and some prophets, and
others evangelists, and others pastors and doctors. For the per-
fecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up
of the body of Christ : until we all meet in the unity of faith, and of
the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the
measure of the age of the fulness of Christ : that henceforth we be no
more children tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of
doctrine by the wickedness of men, by cunning craftiness by which
they lie in wait to deceive. But doing the truth in charity, we may
in all things grow up in Him who is the head, even Christ. From
whom the whole body, being compactly and fitly joined together,
by what every joint supplieth, according to the operation in every
part, maketh increase of the body unto the building of itself in
charity." With a sense thus vivid of the organic unity of the
Church, felt as vividly as any one can feel his own organic unity,
the Apostles were intolerant of all heresies, sects, and schisms,
which they repeatedly denounced, forbidding all communication
with their authors. And as the Church has always lived in the
same keen sense of her unity, she has never hesitated to cut
those off who disturbed her unity, whenever they have proved
incurable.

As man lost his dignity by disobedience, and his spiritual strength
by self-assertion, and as all the divisions of mankind have come
of their terrible egotism ; the whole plan of the Saviour of mankind
was to destroy this egotism, this self-assertion and disobedience.
His great object therefore was, to reunite the human family in
Himself, that through His humanity they might cleave to His
divinity, that so they might recover their unity in one, and their
final end.

Consider the nature of man. He is not a mere intelligence.
He is made of body and soul, most closely adhering to each other.

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 361

He is compacted of sense and imagination as much as of intelligence.
Before he can be restored to God, all these elements must be taken
hold of. What carries him from truth but his senses ? What leads
him into error but his imagination? What takes him from the
spirit but the flesh ? What holds him back from God but his pride
or sloth ? What withdraws him from the virtues but the passions
of his fallen nature ? They fill the imagination with the promise
of great things that they can never perform. We talk of the five
or the seven senses, but what a manifold network there is in each of
these senses, that work from outwards inwardly, and when they
have reached there, what an unsearchable network there is in their
combination as the result of their play meets in the imagination.
How innumerable, again, are the objects that attract the senses,
and through them affect the soul ! How these senses, and the
imagination on which they work, catch the flames of concupiscence,
and conspire to fill the soul with earthly to the exclusion of
heavenly desires !

Nothing can be more evident than that the senses and even the
imagination of man required to be rectified as well as his soul, and
that the body must be brought under subjection before the soul can
recover her superiority. Those who speak of a purely spiritual
religion as most suitable to man know n6t what they say. A
purely spiritual religion is for natures purely spiritual like the
angels. As if man had not fallen in body as well as soul ; as if
he had not fallen through the very means of his corporal senses ;
as if the soul did not live in the senses as well as in herself; as if
the senses did not act with amazing power on the soul ; as if this
covetous body did not make the soul covetous ; or the sensuous
body did not make the soul sensuous ; or the impure body did not
make the soul impure ; or the restless body did not make the soul
passionate. How are we to reach the revelation of God except
through visible teaching ? How are the spiritual things of God to be
laid hold of securely except as clothed with sensible forms, whether
of language, figures of speech — those brighteners of intelligence
drawn from visible things — or of sacraments? What is the
Divine Incarnation but an appeal to mankind through God's visible
human nature ? What are the words and actions, the life and
death of Christ, but one grand appeal to our spiritual nature through
every sense and feeling of our earthly frame ?

To deny that religion embraces body as well as soul is to deny

362 THE REGENERATION OF MAN.

the efficacy of the Divine Incarnation. To deny the organic unity
of Christ's universal Church is to deny both the unity of Christ
and the unity of the human family, which He came to restore and
to perfect. Who that understands human nature can fail to see
that the Incarnation of the Eternal Word is most divinely fitted to
the requirements of human restoration ? If all religion is incor-
porated in Christ ; if it be all summed up in the words of St. Paul,
" Christ yesterday, to-day, and He is the same for ever"; and if in
Christ our religion is both spiritual and corporal, what else ought
we to look for but that His divine institutions should reflect His
Incarnation, and should incorporate His authority in visible persons,
and His spiritual gifts in visible elements ? The body of Christ is
pure, undefiled, and ever obedient to His spirit. His spirit is not
filled with flesh, but His flesh with spirit. That body is the veil and
the vital instrument of His spiritual action ; through its medium He
takes hold of the senses of men, and through their senses He takes
hold of their spirit. Christ is a universal sacrament. The eyes of
men look on Him, and their souls feel His power. His words
enter their ears, and light passes to their minds. He commands,
and nature yields to His .voice. He puts forth His hand, and
power goes forth from Him, to heal the sick, to cure the blind, to
raise the dead. He draws all visible things into parables, in which
He makes the truth visible and perceptible to human sense. The
Eternal Word tempers all His acts and teachings to human nature
in a human manner, fitted both to sense and understanding, and
expressed with human sympathy. He weeps over evil, and the
souls of men are opened by His tenderness. He smiles and their
hearts expand ; He rebukes, and they fear. He loves, and they
are drawn to His love. He blesses with open hands, and their
hearts feel His grace. He takes bread into His hands, and with
a consecrating benediction He says : " This is my body," and at
His creative word it becomes what He calls it. And so of the cup
with His blood. His body and blood are full of His life and
spirit, and whilst His disciples partake of the one they receive the
other.

Christianity consists more in actions than in words ; the object
of teaching is to bring us to action, and external action is but the
expression of internal action. Can there be anything more striking
to mortal sense, or healing to human sensuality, than to look with
the eyes of faith upon the sufierings and death of Christ ? What

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 363

can be more purifying to our senses than to contemplate that
agony in which the Son of God suffers in innocence as a penitent
for our sins ? What more destructive to our pride than His
humiliations before the courts of Jerusalem ? There we see the
value of this world's judgments, when it speaks in the cause of
God. There we see the God of truth and justice condemned to
death, to be even put out of this world, because He troubles the
pride of life. What can be more corrective of the unclean passions
of our nature than to behold the Son of God denuded to the cruel
scourge ? Pilate declared Him innocent, and then gave Him up
to be lacerated and torn in body and in soul ; and Christ submits to
atone for our sensualities. What can more effectually open our heart
to Christ with repentance, than to look upon the Divine Victim for
our sins and healer of our sorrows, as, crowned with thorns, and
with the Cross upon His shoulders. He moves on his dreary way
to Mount Calvary ; where, extended on the Cross, and fastened
with nails to its wood, and lifted up by human malignity unto a
divine sacrifice, He bleeds for us, suffers the extremes of anguish
for us, prays for us, and pardons us ; dies to give us life ; and
reconciles the world that crucifies Him to God and the Father.

It is your mortal eyes that bring your spirit to see, your mortal
ears that bring your soul to listen, and your heart to know, this Man,
this God, this Priest, this Victim, torn and rent for the destruction of
your concupiscence 3 this blood of God shed for the cleansing of
your sins ; this fountain of life and grace expended for your use and
service ; this sermon of sermons, this truth of truths, enacted before
your eyes, and appealing through every mortal sense and feeling to
your immortal soul. It is a spectacle that subdues every petulant
passion and conceit into awe and silence ; fills your whole being
with the sense of how God has loved you, and given Himself for
you ; and brings down the whole pride of life into humble fear,
and faith, and gratitude. Then the charity of Christ falls upon
us like fire, and our hearts are constrained to acknowledge that,
as Christ died for us, we ought not to live to ourselves, but for
Him who died for us, and rose for our justification. Then we
understand how we ought to mortify our earthly members, that
Christ may reign in our mortal body. Then we can comprehend
how the old things ought to pass away, that we may become a new
creature in Christ.

Blind is every one, and blind with pride, who cannot see that

364 THE REGENERATION OF MAN

the whole intent of the Divine Incarnation is to take hold of us
bodily as well as spiritually, and to bring the whole man under
subjection to the rule of the Son of God. Blind is he who does
not see the condition of his own nature, and that the great
obstacle to his bringing his spirit to the spirit of God is the
opposition of his carnal to his spiritual nature; and that it
is through the conquering of his senses that his mind and heart
are conquered to the light and grace of God.

The first design for the happiness of man was to make one
kingdom of the human family, all being united in truth and
charity both with their Creator and with each other. They were
therefore created in corporate unity, in one father and from one
flesh and blood, whereby all men were cemented into one common
and natural brotherhood; and were intended to be united with
God and with each other through one common light of faith, and
by the heavenly gift of charity. But this great design for the
securing of human happiness was broken and destroyed by man
himself. Sin entered into him, and with sin the loss of the prin-
ciple of union, and division took place within the man, and
broke forth, and filled the world with contentions, enmities,
hatreds, and rivalries. The restoration of man would, therefore,
be very incomplete, were it not a corporate as well as a personal
restoration, were it not that unity of brotherhood re-established in
Christ, which sin had destroyed by the fall of Adam, This was
the great work of the Son of God. He established His kingdom or
Church, in which those who were no longer united in the blood of
Adam were united in His blood, so that they who were before
divided in soul were re-united together in His truth and grace.

This is that kingdom of God which the Prophet Daniel saw in
vision, with the kingdoms of the earth falling down before it. The
king of Babylon saw " a stone cut out of a mountain without
hands ". This stone is Christ, of whom St. Peter says : " The
stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of
the corner ". Then the stone " became a great mountain, and
filled the whole earth ". And this is the Prophet's interpretation
of the vision : " In the days of those kingdoms, the God of Heaven
will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, and His
kingdom shall not be delivered up to another people, and it shall
break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and itself shall
stand for ever". This universal, inalienable, and everlasting

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 365

kingdom has ever been regarded as the kingdom of Christ, nor
can it be any other. The Prophet marked out the very time and
the conditions of its appearance in the world. To secure the
unity, life, and perpetuity of this kingdom, Christ gave to it a divine
and a fourfold power. This fourfold power was received from Him
as the King, the Priest, the Teacher, and the Saviour of mankind.

The first power Christ gives to His kingdom is government,
invested in a priesthood derived from His own. He centres this
government in one, as the secure foundation of its unity, and gives
to that one the keys of power, and the command to feed His whole
flock as the shepherd of men. He establishes that one as a rock,
and gives His strength to that rock to sustain the whole building
of the Church.

Having given His kingly power to one, the apostolic authority
which He had first concentrated in that one He distributes to the
Twelve. But their apostolate expires with them, and the sacerdotal
and pastoral power continues with their successors. But the
apostleship continues to the end of time in the succession of the
one in whom it was first concentrated. Then the Divine Founder
of the Church establishes a second order of clergy, co-operating
with the first, in the seventy-two disciples.

Having provided for the government of His kingdom, He
deposits with that government His eternal truth, with authority
and command to teach that truth to all nations, and with the
promise to be with the teachers whom He has appointed, and to
keep them in all truth to the end of time. He thus gives to all
men of goodwill the certainty and security as to where they may
find His authority, and where they may obtain His truth.

In the hands of that authorized priesthood He also ordains
His sacraments, the visible and most certain channels of His
invisible grace, for the cleansing, the sanctifying, and the conse-
crating of human nature.

He also institutes a divine worship in His own divine sacrifice,
to be the great and the perpetual centre of all worship. In this
sacrifice Christ Himself is still the sovereign priest, still the sacred
victim ; not another sacrifice, but always the same that was offered
on the Cross. As that sacrifice is always offered for mankind in
Heaven above, so is it offered on the earth beneath, by Christ
Himself through the hands of His appointed ministers. He thus
fulfils His promise through the last of His prophets, that " from

366 THE REGENERATION OF MAN

the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, My name is great
among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there
is offered to My name a clean oblation ".

The Eucharistic Sacrifice and Sacrament, the sublimest com-
munication between Heaven and earth, the greatest of God's gifts
to man, is the extension through time of the Divine Incarnation.
What is commenced in the sacrament of regeneration is completed
in the Eucharistic Sacrament The first of these sacraments brings
the child of Adam into the mystical body of Christ ; the second
perfects his union with Christ in the partaking of His very body
and blood, filled with spirit and life. And by this access to the
spring of grace and truth, he obtains more than ever he lost in
the tree of life.

In all the communications of God with man there are divine
and even infinite reservations, into which we neither can nor ought
to penetrate beyond the veil of faith. God reveals not His Majesty;
He gives us no approach to His sacred privacy. He withholds
us from the splendour of His insufferable light and burning glory.
We cannot see God with our mortal eyes or with our spiritual
eyes ; there is no proportion between them and the unspeakable
vision of God, until, after our probation is over, they shall be pre-
pared for their measure of beatitude. Yet the just soul often feels
the tempered influence of the Eternal Presence. The Word Incar-
nate was seen by mortal eyes, yet in a human way, so that faith
alone discovered that He was the Son of God. Once alone, to
chosen witnesses. He appeared in effulgent glory, which over-
whelmed their sense and soul, so that they could not continue to
look upon Him. After He arose from the dead. He was seen often,
and by many, yet in a way that was toned to their ordinary senses,
until the crowd of witnesses beheld His ascent to Heaven. In all
these revelations of the Son of God there were infinite reservations.
But His Eucharistic Presence is pre-eminently the mystery of faith
and the reward of faith. Even His sacrificed humanity is presented
under veils. The external qualities of bread and wine remain to
form those veils, whilst the substance is changed into His body
and blood in virtue of His own creative words. Faith penetrates
those veils with love, whilst unbelief is turned away.

The substance of things is the object of human intelligence, but
not of human sense. God alone has the perfect knowledge and
view of substance. This, again, is a divine reservation. Substance

THE REGENERATION OF MAN 367

is that secret force or energy which sustains the qualities presented
to the senses. From the qualities, in the ordinary course of nature,
we infer the substance. But in the Eucharistic Sacrament, whilst
the qualities remain, the substance is changed, and the qualities
veil the substantial presence of the body and blood of Christ. The
reality is concealed from the sensual man, whilst it exercises the
faith of the spiritual man. For faith is the fundamental condition
of spiritual life in this world of probation. As the presence of the
Eternal Word, who is in the world, though the world knows Him
not, is veiled from us by the whole creation, so the presence of
His body and blood is veiled as in a mystery, that it may not be
seen except by faith. Pride is ever curious and restless to know
everything before its time. Patient humility is content to await
the hour when God shall reveal all things. Pride, which would
command all things, turns with averted eyes from the evidence
that rests on divine authority. But the divine mysteries are
ordained for humble souls, whose subjection to God is the prepara-
tion for the reception of eternal things. There is even a divinely
benignant consideration for our human weakness in this veiling
of the heavenly mysteries, which the Greek Father Theophylact has
expressed in these terms : " That we may not hold back with fear
at the sight of the body and blood upon the holy tables of our
churches, God condescends to our weakness, infuses the power of
life into the oblations, and the energy of His blood ".*

What a scene was that in the synagogue of Capharnaum, whose
walls have recently been brought again to light. It is recorded
in the 6th chapter of St. John. The multitude who had eaten
the miraculous bread the day before followed our Lord across the
lake in their boats. Jesus said to them : " I am the living
bread which came down from Heaven; if any man eat of this bread
he shall live for ever ; and the bread that I will give is My flesh
for the life of the world. The Jews, therefore, debated among
themselves, saying: How can this man give us His flesh to
eat?" Clear proof is this how well they understood His words.
They knew not that He was the Son of God, nor did they know
how His flesh was to be eaten ; but they had no doubt of His
having declared that His flesh was to be eaten : " Then Jesus
said to them : Amen, amen, I say unto you, except you eat the
flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall not have
* Theophylact, Comment, in Joan, c. vi.

368 THE REGENERATION OF MAN.

life in you. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood,
hath everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For
My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He that
eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in
him. As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father j
so he that eateth Me, the same also shall live by Me. This is the
bread that came down from Heaven." This most clear, emphatic,
unmistakable, and often-repeated declaration literally staggered
His audience. Now mark the result. There could not be, nor
was there, any doubt as to His meaning. The difficulty was to
believe what was so new and strange. Many, therefore, of His
disciples, hearing it, said : " This saying is hard, and who can
hear it? But Jesus, knowing in Himself that His disciples
murmured at this, said to them : Does this scandalize you ? If,
then, you shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was
before. It is the Spirit that quickeneth ; the flesh profiteth
nothing. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and
life. But there are some of you that believe not."

They thought of eating His dead body, like ordinary food ;
whilst He spoke of His living and life-giving body. Yet He
points to this once more : What if you saw Me ascend to Heaven,
where I was before ? He then explains that the flesh is nothing •
without the spirit of life ; and that their fleshly views will not
help them to accept His words without faith. Now mark the
final result : " After this many of His disciples went back, and
walked no more with Him ". They went away because they could
not believe that they must eat His flesh and blood. " Then Jesus
said to the Twelve : Will you also go away ? And Simon Peter
answered Him : Lord, to whom shall we go ? Thou hast the
words of eternal life. And we believe and have known that
Thou art the Christ, the Son of God." The Apostles under-
stood not how this was to be more than the multitude, but they
believed He would fulfil what He said, because He is the Son of
God. We may imagine the impression left on the minds of the
Apostles by these plain but mysterious words, and by this extra-
ordinary scene. How often must they have recalled it ! How
often they must have talked it over, and have wondered how this
promise was to be fulfilled ! But at the Last Supper their eyes
were suddenly opened, and they knew how they were to partake
of His body and blood.

THE REGENERATION OF MAN. 369

Why should it be thought incredible that Christ should give us
His flesh and blood ? There are only two impossibilities in the
question, and they both vanish the moment we take a compre-
hensive view of human nature. The first is the very changing of
the substance of bread and wine into Christ's flesh and blood ;
the second is the multiplication of that body and blood according
to the multiplication of them who partake. As to the first question,
how can we refuse to the second Adam, who is both God and
man, what we must allow to the first Adam, and to every one of
his descendants ? How does man grow from birth to maturity ?
how does he maintain his strength, but by a natural process
of transubstantiation ? He is constantly changing the substance
of meat and drink into the substance of His body and blood.
We may call this process a natural miracle, for it is certainly most
mysterious. How does life take hold of these dead substances,
animate them for a time, and then let go of them ? If the living
body and blood of the natural man are formed, and grow, and
are strengthened, by this natural process of transubstantiation,
how can we deny to the divine and supernatural man the power
to exercise a divine transubstantiation ? The first is according to
the power of man; the second is according to the power of God.
The natural man takes bread, and, ceasing to be bread, it becomes
his flesh and blood. Christ, the Son of God, takes bread, and
says : " This is my body," and it becomes His flesh and blood ;
and in like manner He takes wine, and says : '' This is my blood
which shall be shed for you " ; and it becomes His blood inse-
parable from His body. The bread and wine are separately
consecrated, to represent the separation of His blood from His
body in His sacrifice. But as His blood was resumed to His
body in the resurrection, and He liveth for ever, there is hence-
forth no separation of His blood from His body, or of His spirit
and life from both ; and it is His spirit and life that profit us.

The Fathers of the Church compare this change, this transmu-
tation, this transubstantiation of bread and wine into the
body and blood of Christ, with the change of water into
wine at Cana; with the changing of the rod of Aaron into
a serpent ; with the changing of the waters of the Nile into
blood ; with the sweeting of the bitter waters of Mara ; with
the conversion of food into the substance of the body ; and with
the change of earth and water into the substance of plants.

24

370 THE REGENERATION OF MAN.

What we have here said was well summed up in the Comment
of Theophylact on the 6th chapter of St. John : " Observe," he
says, "that the bread eaten by us is not a mere figure of the
Lord's flesh, but it is the very flesh of the Lord. For He did not
say : ' The bread which I gave you is the figure of My flesh,' but He
said : ' It is My flesh '. This bread is transformed by the secret
words, through the mystical benediction and the coming of the
Holy Spirit, into the flesh of the Lord. Nor let it disturb any one
that the bread must be believed to be flesh. For even whilst the
Lord walked in the flesh, and received nourishment from bread,
that bread which He ate was changed into His body, and became
like His sacred flesh, and contributed after the human manner to
the increase and support thereof Therefore, now also the bread
is changed into the flesh of the Lord." *

The second difficulty is the multiplied participation of the body
and blood of Christ. Yet what are we all but the multiplication
of the body of Adam. What if, as after the Deluge, the human
family were again reduced to one parental stock? Who can
doubt but that from one man the earth might be again repeopled?
How is the body of Adam multiplied into the great human family,
except that it obtains its power to multiply by the transubstantia-
tion of food into corporal life? If the first man can be thus
multiplied, if every man can be thus multiplied, how is it that
the perfect man, the God-man, whose work it is to restore all men,
cannot equally multiply the communication of His body by
another mode of transubstantiation, not unlike the first ?

It must be ever remembered that Christ is the fountain of our
new and regenerated humanity, as Adam was of the old humanity ;
and that from Christ, as the head, life flows into the members.
The Holy Communion is the consummation of what is begun in
baptism, since by it the old man is more and more transferred into
the new man. As fast, therefore, as the old Adam becomes regene-
rated, after being multiplied in the body of evil, so fast does the new
Adam multiply the communication of the body of grace and life ;
that we may enter into His life through His sacramentalized body,
may partake of the vital principle of the resurrection from the dead,
and live by Christ, as He lives by the Father.

But the Holy Eucharist is more than this, it is a sacrifice in the

* Theophylact, Comment, in yoan, c. vi. See Dr. Russell's notes on the
Systema Theologicum of Leibnitz, Art. " Transubstantiation".

THE REGENERATION OF MAN 371

act of becoming a sacrament. The sacrifice of the lamb pre-
figured the sacrifice of Christ from the days of Abel until the
Last Supper. Our Lord then celebrated that figurative sacrifice
Himself for the last time, immediately after which He established
His own. So that there has been no interruption of the sacrifice
of the lamb from Abel until our day, except that at the Last
Supper the figurative gave place to the true Lamb of God, the
shadow disappeared before the substance. He took bread, and
giving thanks, He broke, and said : " Take ye and eat ; this is
My body which shall be delivered for you. This do for the com-
memoration of Me. In like manner also the cup after He had
supped, saying : This chalice is the New Testament in My
blood. This do ye, as often as you shall drink, for the com-
memoration of Me. For as often as you shall eat this bread
and drink this chalice you shall show the death of the Lord until
He come."

Observe that Christ not only delivered to the Apostles the
mysteries of His body and blood, but that He spoke of it as His
body delivered for us. The Greek and Syriac texts say : " My body
that shall be broken for you". On which St. Chrysostom says :
" The breaking of the body in the sacrament expresses the break-
ing and suffering on the Cross ". In like manner, elsewhere,
Christ says : " This is the cup of My blood which shall be shed
for many unto the remission of sins ". But the body broken and
offered for us, the blood shed for the remission of our sins, consti-
tute the sacrifice of Christ. Christ therefore celebrated His
sacrifice at the Last Supper, and commanded its celebration to all
future times. St. Paul says that He offered Himself " once, for
ever," which signifies that the one offering is continued for ever,
yet is always the one and same offering that was made upon
the Cross. And St, John beholds the Lamb upon the golden
altar in Heaven "standing as it were for ever slain". He beholds
the Divine Victim in a perpetual state of sacrifice. Again, St.
Paul compares the sacrificed blood of Christ with the blood of
the old victims of the Tabernacle and the Temple which
sanctified all that it touched, and was carried yearly through the
veil into the Holy of Holies ; whilst Christ carries His blood
into the Holy Heavens by a new and living way which He hath
dedicated through the veil. His flesh, as " a high priest over the
house of God ". The Apostle therefore says, in another place :

372 THE REGENERATION OF MAN

" We have an altar of which they who serve the tabernacle do not
partake ".

It is not another sacrifice but the same that was offered on
Calvary ; offered on Calvary with the real shedding of blood,
offered on our altars with the representative and commemorative
shedding of that blood which is accomplished by the separate and
distinct consecration of His body and of His blood, the one in the
form of bread, the other in the form of wine. But whilst this
double consecration and communion is essential for the priest
who offers the sacrifice in the power of Christ and as His
minister, yet as Christ is no longer dead but liveth for ever, He
is not divided, and therefore whoever receives under one kind,
receives the body and blood, the life and spirit, of Christ.

Here, then, is the centre of all Christian worship, in which the
fruits of the oblation on the Cross are plentifully received. The
Mass is not a mere prayer, although the sublimest of all prayers ;
not a mere instruction, although the divinest of instructions ; the
Mass is a divine action in which the priest represents Christ, and
in which Christ presents His immolation to God for man. As
He sits in His sacrificed but glorious body at the right hand of
God "making perpetual intercession for us," in the same body
upon our altars He makes intercession for us. The sacrifice of
the altar is not only the most sacred, but it is the freest of all
forms of worship. For whilst the priest performs the sacrificial
action according to the sacred rite, the people who assist follow
each their own devotion and are not tied to the words and actions
of the priest. As Mary and John stood by the Cross and beheld
the Lord crucified and heard His supplications to the Father for
our pardon, reconciliation, and peace, so each one has his own
light, his own feelings, his own devotion, his own mode of view,
his own spirit, his own way of prayer and inspiration of heart, his
own fruit of grace through the sacrifice of our Lord, at whose re-
newal he assists.

When St. John saw his vision of Heaven he beheld it in that
order in which the Church on earth assists at the Holy Sacrifice,
yet transformed with glory and blessed with the open vision of
her mysteries. He beholds the throne of God ; and before the
throne the golden altar ; and upon the altar the seven golden
candlesticks ; and behind the altar one like to the Son of God,
in a white garment and a girdle of gold, for He is the Bishop of

THE RE GENERA TION OF MAN. 3 7 3

souls. Beneath the altar are the souls of the martyrs slain for the
testimony. By the altar is the book of mysteries. Upon the
altar stands the Lamb as it were for ever slain. Around the altar
are the seats of the twenty-four presbyters who assist the
sacrificing Bishop, who is like to the Son of God. And there stand
the great congregation of saints, in their several orders and ranks :
the martyrs, the virgins, the confessors of the faith, and the vast
multitude. And they sing the canticle of God and the Lamb :
*' The Lamb that was slain is worthy to receive power, and
divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and glory, and benediction ".
And to the Lamb, when, as at the sacrifice. He opens the book of
mysteries, they sing : " Thou art worthy, O Lord, to take the book,
and to open the seals thereof : because Thou wast slain, and hast
redeemed us in Thy blood, out of every tribe, and tongue, and
people, and nation. And hast made us to our God a kingdom
and priests, and we shall reign upon the earth.''

This is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of Christ in Heaven
is the transformation of the kingdom of Christ on earth. On earth
He reigns over His own in the word of truth, and in His
Eucharistic presence. In Heaven He reigns in the open light of
truth, for "there is no sun or moon, but the Lamb is the light
thereof". And He reigns in His open presence, where all the
blessed behold Him in the glory of His Godhead, and in the full
stature of His glorious manhood; from which every saint has
received the fruits of his redemption, and has drunk from it as the
fountain of immortal life. Here, then, we reach the full measure
of man's dignity. The perfect man, as St Paul tells us, is he
who has reached the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ.

LECTURE XIV.

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

" Thou wast cast upon the face of the earth in the abjection of thy soul, in
the day that thou wast born. And passing by thee, I saw that thou wast
trodden under foot in thy blood ; and I said to thee when thou wast in thy
blood : Live. Yes, I said to thee : Live, thou that art in thy blood. . . ,
And I washed thee with water, and I cleansed away thy blood ; and I
anointed thee with oil. And I clothed thee with embroidery. . . . Thou
wast clothed with fine linen, and embroidered work, and many colours ; thou
didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil, and wast made exceeding beautiful.
And thy renown went forth among the nations for thy beauty ; for thou wast
perfect through My beauty, which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord." —
EzECHiEL xvi. 5-14.

IN the opening picture of this divine parable every Christian
may comtemplate his own portrait as he first appeared in
this world. Fear precedes his birth. Pain and distress attended
his coming to the light. His first infant cries proclaimed his
sufferings. Clothed in the blood of the fallen Adam, his trembling
dawn of life brings with it such a state of want, and such a cry of
helplessness, that the heart of every beholder is moved to com-
passion. The poor little body is in want of everything, and can
provide for nothing. The tender soul, fresh from its Creator's
hand, is immersed in that fragile body, and is become an abject
under the mortal sensibilities that quiver in the feeble earthly
frame, still ignorant of what she is, still ignorant of her eternal
destiny. Can this be the original state in which God created
man ? Can this represent the condition in which God originally
designed that man should come into the world ? Assuredly not,
for everything about the new-born child proclaims its descent
from an ancestor who has fallen from good to evil, from an ancestor
whose blood is attainted because of treason against the Sovereign
of the universe. The first things that appear in the offspring of
Adam are abjection, defilement, and suffering, and the signs of

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN 375

the presence of moral disorder quickly follow. For the animal is
dominant over the spiritual man, the inferior controls the superior
nature from the first instant of personal life, whilst reason sleeps
a profound sleep within the soul, and conscience, as the witness
of God, is silent in the heart, until reason dawns to awaken its
power by degrees.

The child passes its earliest years under the exclusive influence
of its animal senses and instincts, that spring from the tainted
blood of Adam, whilst the soul that comes with the body into the
world is an alien from God and from His grace, and is trodden
under the malignant influence of God's enemy and ours. Can we
possibly imagine the spiritual image of God removed to a greater
distance from God than in this state of unregenerated infancy ?
Is it possible to conceive the beginning of an intelligent creature
in a lower or more abject condition ? The soul is in want of
everything, and the body is in want of everything. Through long
years must the child be dependent on the care of others for every
want of the body, and every instruction of the soul, that infancy
may be advanced to youth, and youth to manhood ; that the
mind may be opened to light and intelligence ; that the sensual
instincts may give way to the moral sense, and the moral sense
be brought into discipline.

" Thou wast cast upon the face of the earth in the abjection of
thy soul, in the day that thou wast born, and passing by thee I
saw that thou wast trodden in thy blood." God came to us when
estranged from Him, when cast out from our inheritance, when
trodden down in the guilty blood derived from Adam. He
came as one passing by, because we knew Him not, yet He
cannot forget the creature made to His image. He reprobates
the evil that deforms His image, and estranges His creatures
from Him, but loves the good that still remains, and that,
however defiled, is still undestroyed. Nor will God abandon
His own divine plan, or suffer His adversary to destroy His work
beyond all power of reparation. He beholds that power of
memory created to receive His eternal light ; He beholds that
power of understanding made for the purpose of entering into
His divine truth ; He looks to that will that He created with a
free and generous capacity to love Him as the Supreme and
Eternal Good. He beholds that soul which He created with that
trinity of powers, in disorder and division, and turned away from

376 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN

Him, yet still capable of being brought back to order, turned to
truth and restored to justice ; still capable through His divine
gifts of being united with Him in the bond of eternal love.

Man may forget God and the glorious end of his creation, but
God cannot forget the intelligent creature whom He has so
wonderfully made, and made with so much love, and for an end
so perfect. His Eternal Word therefore came in a most beautiful
humanity, established us in kindred with Him, and by a new and
most pure generation made us the heirs of His blood and of His
life. That He should come to our nature was no descent, because
He encompasseth every creature ; but when He took our human
nature to His own divine personality He bridged over the infinite
distance between His divinity and our humanity, and in that
humanity he descended into the lowest depths of creation, where
He found nothing but blindness to restore to sight, misery to
redeem, and iniquity to repair with justice.

The child that comes into this world stands in need of another
life beyond this mortal existence. Without this second life from
God, the first derived from man leaves the soul without her reason
of existence, and without the means of accomplishing the object
for which she came into this world. To be made for God, and
yet have no just and due relations with God, is to be in a position
that is utterly false and unmeaning. To have our desires centred
on one's self, when the true centre of our life is in God, is to be
in a state of existence which is altogether perverse and absurd.
Until this evil state derived from Adam is removed, and until the
elements of a divine life are planted in us, to draw us from the
false to the true centre of light, there is nothing either in the
child or in the man that can establish us in just order, either with
God or within ourselves. Every Christian child has therefore two
beginnings of life, of which the first is natural, and is derived from
Adam, and the second is supernatural, and derived from Christ.

It is this second and supernatural life which commands our
utmost faith and gratitude, the giving of which is so impressively
described in the divine parable of the Prophet Ezechiel : " And I
said to thee when thou wast in thy blood : Live. Yes, I said to
thee : Live, thou that art in thy blood. . . . And I washed thee
with water, and I cleansed away thy blood ; and I anointed thee
with oil, and I clothed thee with embroidery. . . . Thou wast
clothed with fine linen, and embroidery, and many colours ; thou

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN 377

didst eat fine flour, and honey, and oil, and wast made exceeding
beautiful. For thou was perfected through My beauty, which
I had put upon thee, saith the Lord." The redeeming, the
restoring, and the clothing of man with a divine life and beauty
is the work of God through the Divine Incarnation. But the very
nature of the Divine Incarnation implies that the whole man
requires to be healed and restored. " The Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us." Evil came to man in a corporal shape,
and passed through his senses to his soul. It is because the soul
is immersed in her corporal senses, and is thereby prompted to self-
love, and pride, and sensuality, that she has become alienated
from God. The flesh lusts against the spirit, and makes the spirit
turn from God to inferior things with a love of preference that
fills her with disorder. Whoever does not understand this can
never understan~d the full meaning of the Incarnation as it brings
God to us both in body and in spirit, nor why the principle of the
Divine Incarnation should be continued in the sacraments, which
are given to both the body and the soul. Christ acts through His
visible Church, which is His mystical body, both in the delivery
of His word and of His sacraments externally, whilst He conveys
the light of His truth and the grace of the sacraments to the soul
internally.

The body is washed with living water, and the soul is purified.
The body is signed with the saving Cross in the name of the Holy
Trinity, and the soul is restored to the likeness of the Holy
Trinity. The body is anointed, and the soul is strengthened.
The body is clothed in white to express the inward clothing of the
soul with the supernatural light of faith, and with the rectifying
grace of justice, and with the graces of the virtues, that when
cultivated they may beautify the soul as with an embroidery work of
many colours. Faith opens the way to God, hope aspires to God,
and charity unites the soul with God. The divine seed of these
virtues is committed to the infant soul, where in secret and silence
it awaits a devout and holy cultivation. The child of Adam has
become the child of God, and an immortal food, full of life,
strength, and sweetness, awaits the soul of that child until it reaches
the age of active reason, faith, and responsibiUty. "Thou wast
perfect through My beauty, which I had put upon thee, saith the
Lord."

This regenerated child, with its hidden treasures, God commits

378 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN

to the care and responsibility of its parents, whom He made the
authors of its first life, that they might guard the second, and
might be to that child as His visible providence. To them He
has committed the sacred duty of first opening the mind of their
child both to the light of reason and the light of faith. The
Christian child is not only a member of the family, but a member
of the Church and body of Christ, and, as God's representative,
the Church has her solemn duties towards that child, which can
only be accomplished through the co-operation of its parents or
guardians.

Of the two orders of gifts with which God has endowed this
child, the divine is given to exalt and perfect the natural, and to
bring the whole man into communion with God. The natural
order must, therefore, be so cultivated as to bring it under the
effectual influence of the supernatural order of gifts, and the
supernatural order of gifts must be so cultivated as to accomplish
the divine intentions. To reverse this order of things in the
training of infancy and youth, to put the natural before the
supernatural, and man above God, to fill the mind with human
notions to the exclusion of divine truth, and the heart with human
motives to the exclusion of divine intentions, is to subvert the
nature of things, to reverse the eternal order of justice, and to
put the inconstant things of time before the unchangeable goods
of eternity.

Woe, then, to the parents, woe to the teachers, and woe to the
blind politicians, who look only to the natural and forget the
divine elements implanted in the children of God ; who devote
all culture to the child of nature, and have little or no considera-
tion for the child of grace. In neglecting the principles of divine
justice they are destroying the foundations of human justice, and
preparing the way for every domestic and social disorder. For all
human justice rests ultimately on the conscience, as the con-
science rests on God; and whoever is not well trained in his
duties to God can never be expected to be well trained in his
duties to man. It is like cultivating the weeds and neglecting the
corn ; it is the making a wilderness of opinions through which
the soul of man can find no way to God, left as he is amidst the
perplexity of human opinions, and starved in soul for the want of
spiritual nourishment.

The education of man begins with his birth, and only terminates

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN. 379

with his mortal life, for the whole of this life is but an education for
eternity. Happy is he who considers this great truth with intelli-
gence and takes the whole course of God's divine providence for
his instructor ; who forgets not the past in the present, and from
the present and past draws lessons for the future ; and w^ho, living
in the presence of God, is ever subject to His discipline, and is
guided by the providential manifestations of His will. Such a one is
always learning in the school where God has placed him, and is
always making some advancement in the fulfilment of justice. He
looks back upon his origin, and finds himself the work of God upon
the verge of nothingness. He recalls his infancy and youth, and
finds himself at first altogether helpless and dependent, then way-
ward and thoughtless and still dependent upon the labours, lights,
and solicitudes of maturer heads and minds ; whilst his maturer
years depend in a thousand ways on the good providence of God.
Let him distinguish what he has received from what he has not
received, and he will find nothing to claim as from his own foun-
tain but the acts of his own will ; let him distinguish between the
good and evil in the acts of his will, and he will find that the
motive power of his goodwill comes of the light and grace of God,
although the choice be his own, whilst his evil thoughts and acts
alone are purely his own. This is that separation of the precious
from the vile which makes the man sincere and truthful, and, as
the Prophet says, "like the mouth of God". It will teach him
the great lesson, that whilst in doing evil he sinks into his own
weakness, in doing or receiving good he has but followed the good
that God in His divine providence has put before him.

If he turn from the exterior world into his own interior, he will
there meet with wonders that are constantly increasing, and to
which he can find no termination. For although on our material
side we everywhere meet with limitation, on our spiritual side, where
God holds communion with us, we find His unchangeable truth
without bounds or limits, and His unchangeable justice speaking
ever with His voice. What an endowment is the light of reason,
in which all men see the same principles of truth and justice, and
to which all men are equally subject ! What an incomparably
greater endowment does the same soul receive when the light of
faith descends upon the light of reason and the man is brought
into the higher sphere of light, in which God is more nearly seen,
and His eternal mysteries are revealed to us ! Nothing more com-

38o FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

pletely shows what man is of himself, and what by the gift of God.
The man of faith is the friend of God, and is made partaker of His
secrets. " I call you not servants but friends," said our Lord to
His Apostles, " because all things whatsoever I have heard from
My Father I have made known to you."

We receive two kinds of light, the one corporal, the other mental :
the one given to the eyes of the body, the other to the eyes of the
soul. The corporal light is a resplendent image of the spiritual
light. The two small eyes that are set in our face have no pro-
portion whatever to the vast prospect of earth and Heaven that we
are enabled to see through them. Compared with the vastness of
their objects, our eyes are as nothing. But the eyes are only the
instrument, the power of vision is in the soul. How is the vision
accomplished ? Through the gift of light. But that light is no
part of our nature : it is external to us, and we are subject to its
influence. It is the medium which God has provided for bringing
the forms of all visible things through our eyes to our mind. We
can never confound the source of that light with ourselves. The
source of that liglit is the sun, which God has placed at a distance
from us so remote as to exceed the power of imagination to'
represent that distance to us. Yet from that distant source of light
we receive the power of vision, and warmth, and fostering strength
to our earthly frame. Were God to remove the sun from the sphere
in which it acts, we must pine away and perish in darkness.

The material sun is the visible symbol of the Eternal Word of
God, who is the Sun of all intelligences, and who sends forth His
light and His truth to all minds. " That was the true light, which
enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world." For the
light that makes God known is from God, the light that manifests
eternal principles is from eternity. Not that whilst we are in this
world we can see the truth in God, even by the light of faith, and
much less by the light of reason, for that would be to see God,
which is reserved for the life to come. We do not even see the
created sun in Himself, but only in certain rays of His light as they
are reflected and tempered by the atmosphere of this world through
which they pass. Yet they make the sun known to us through its
action reflected upon us. So have we received into our minds a
certain reflection and participation of the light of eternal and
unchangeable truth, tempered indeed to the feebleness of our
nature, but revealing to us its Divine Author.

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN. 381

This is that " bread of intellect " with which our minds are fed,
even as the air feeds our bodies with its vital fire. Yet the distance
in communication between God the Eternal Truth and the created
intellect of the natural man is infinite ; and he receives but the
luminous shadows and remote images of that essential truth. Pale
and slender is the ray of rational light that reaches the understand-
ing of the carnal man, whose mind is absorbed in earthly pursuits,
or obscured by the turbid influence of his sensuous appetites and
impassioned instincts. Wisdom he has not, because his heart is
not touched with the light or moved with the sense of eternal
good.

"When we know anything for certain," observes St. Thomas,
" it is from the light of reason that we know it, from that light
which is divinely implanted in our soul, and by which God speaks
to us."* "The natural reason," he says elsewhere, "is nothing
less than the divine brightness reflected in us."t This light of
reason, he says again, acts as a universal cause, and is reflected in
our mind as the moon reflects the sun, or, more truly, as the solar
rays are reflected through the atmosphere from the objects on
which they alight. We thus see the truth, as St. Bonaventure
remarks, through the medium of the creature as through a mirror,
not seeing the substance but the images of things.

But the light of faith is a more direct light, which more clearly
reveals to us the Divine Author of that light, and those divine
truths beyond the reach of our natural light which He would have
us to know and believe. And although obscurely seen as through
a glass, they are most certain, as well because of the divine source
from which they emanate, as from the divine authority on which
they rest, and because they receive a certain illumination of divine
light in the mind endowed with the gift of faith.

St. John tells us in the beginning of his Gospel that the Eternal
Word of God is the giver of the light of reason as well as of the
light of faith. Of that Eternal Word he says that "all things were
made by Himj and without Him was made nothing that was
made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men ; and
the light shone in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend
it. . . . That was the true light which enlighteneth every man
that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world
was made by Him, and the world knew Him not." Thus far the
* S. Thoma, De Veritate, q. i, a. i. t Id., in Psalm, xxxvi.

382 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

Apostle speaks of the light with which all men are enlightened,
but with a light insufficient to reveal to them the Eternal Word as
the author of their light. Then he speaks of the same Eternal
Word as the author of the light and grace of faith through His
Divine Incarnation : " And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt
among us (and we saw His glory, the glory as it were of the only
begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth. . . . And of His
fulness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law
was given by Moses ; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

What is the darkness into which the light of intelligence shines
but which knows not the Divine Author of its light? There
are many degrees of this darkness. There is the darkness
of the subjective man, who would be in utter darkness
were it not for the light of reason which the Eternal Word
planted in his soul at her creation. There is the darkness,
again, of which St. Paul speaks, the darkness of the animal man,
who turns from God to live on himself, and whose light is clouded
by his pride and sensuality. There is the darkness of those,
again, who are wilfully dark, and who, like the tempters of
Susannah, look down upon the earth that they may not see God.
Then there is the darkness of those many souls who will not look
beyond their natural light, and care not for the divine light that
reveals the mysteries of God and of the soul. Finally, there is
the thick darkness of those souls that confound the objective
light of truth with their own subjective darkness, as though
they were themselves the authors of their light, the givers and
not the receivers of truth ; in a word, as if they were the sun,
and not merely the intelligent eye that receives the light of
the sun.

It is the truth of truths to know the Divine Author and Giver
of our light. And this knowledge is the foundation of that
intellectual humility which makes the soul sincere and just in
obeying the truth, and in feeling her own littleness in the presence
of the truth, whose foundation is in God, For "whatever is true,"
as St. Augustine observes, "is derived from the truth. And a soul is
only a soul in so far as she is a true soul. Each soul derives it from
the truth that she is a soul. But truth cannot admit falsehood, yet
the soul does admit falsehood, and that often. Whatever truth,
therefore, a soul may have, she does not obtain that truth from
herself. God is truth, and it is from God that the soul obtains

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN 383

the truth that makes her a rational soul." * Truth has, therefore,
the right to command the soul, whilst the soul has no right
to command or evade the truth. But the man who is sunk
in sensual affections cannot lift up his eyes to contemplate the
spiritual light of truth, and the world addicted to carnal cupidities
is like the man whose eyes are too weak to look into the sun-
light.

We may sum up what we have said of the great and beautiful
gift of spiritual light in the words of St. Gregory Nazianzen, who
is called the Theologian by eminence : " Great, many, and un-
speakable," he says, " are the things which we now receive or shall
receive from God. But the greatest and most benignant of all is our
attraction to unite with Him. What the sun is to the things of
sense, that God is to the things that we understand in our minds
by reason. As the sun visits our eyes in such a way as to enable
us to behold his light, so God renders our mind divine. The sun
strengthens our eyes to see, and causes all visible things to be
seen ; and in like manner does God bring to all minds the power
to understand, and gives to all intelligent things the power to be
understood, whilst He is Himself the summit of all intelligible
things, and in Him all desire ends and is at peace, because there
is nothing beyond. However wise, however high, however
inquiring the mind of man may be, it neither has, nor can have,
an object more sublime than God. He is the supreme of all
desirable things, and when we have come to Him all anxious
questioning is at an end. The man who breaks through the earth
that weighs upon him, and dispels the clouds of sense with the
help of reason and contemplation, is the man who seeks God and
seeks the illumination of his soul in His most pure light. This
man is twice blessed : he is blessed by being raised on high, and he
is helped in having his soul made conformable with the Divinity ;
and he draws towards that unity which he contemplates in the
Holy Trinity. But although the man that cleaves to his fleshly
senses and clings to his clay had his beginning from God, and is
called to ascend on high, yet he debases himself below what he is,
and will neither direct his mind to the rays of truth, nor ascend above
these baser things. But of this man I say, that although everything
in this world were to follow his will, he would still be wretched in
his blindness, and the more his earthly prosperity deludes him, the

* S, August., De Diversis Questionibus, q. i.

384 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

more wretched he will be. He only plucks the bad fruit of evil
opinion to be punished with darkness, and will find that the God
whom he has not learnt to know in the light of truth is a con-
suming fire." *

One or two sentences more from the eminent Theologian.
"That reason," he says, "which is divinely implanted in all
minds, and that primal law which is inserted and woven into the
bosom of all mortals, is that which raises us up from visible things
to God, No man knows, or will ever know, what God is in His
own essence and nature ; but to my thinking we shall know what
is like to God in ourselves; our mind and reason will be united
with Him whose likeness we are, and the image of God will be
raised into the presence of the original, with whose desire our
soul is touched, and then we shall know even as we are known.
Yet what reaches us in this life is but a little streamlet, but a
feeble ray of that great light." f

We may now draw out the duty of the will towards the truth
in the words of one whom the Greeks look upon as the successor
of St. Gregory Nazianzen. " Beware," says Simeon, the Junior
Theologian, " beware, thou illuminated soul, whom Christ hath
illuminated, that the light which comes to thee comes by a secret
path that is not visible to mortal eyes. Take it not for thy own ;
ascribe it not to thyself, lest it be taken from thine eyes, and thou
teturn to darkness. For neither God nor His light is visible to
the senses. His light is seen in its effects. But you may know
how far you are illuminated, if you only consider how far you
have a meek and humble heart ; for you are illuminated as
far as you are humble, and no further. The reason of this is,
that the soul advances in light as far only as she advances in
humility ; and the pontiffs of wisdom declare that the knowledge
of humility and meekness is the knowledge of God and of self.
For the soul that has been divinely visited is peaceful and
gentle." %

Nothing in this world is so marvellous as the transformation
that a soul undergoes when the light of faith descends upon
the light of reason. It is like the sunlight coming upon the
moonlight, and dissipating a thousand shadows and delusions.
The soul is lifted into a higher sphere, finds herself in a new

* S. Greg. Nazian., Oral. 21. f Id., Oral. 34.

X Simeon Jun. Theolog., Oral. i. In Bib. Max. Patrum.

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN 385

element, and sees from a new principle, resting her mind upon
the mind of God, and not upon her own. Faith gives to her a
new faculty, which rises above the faculties of her nature, though
in complete accordance with them. The light of faith may
approach by degrees, or it may come suddenly like the sunburst
from the cloud; but there is a moment when all things are
changed to the soul, and with a certainty inspiring a confidence
that the light and authority of God alone can give. The memory,
the understanding, the natural reason itself, are pervaded by this
supernatural light, and the will is illuminated with its lustre. It
claims to rule our nature, as what is divinely superior rules what
is naturally inferior. Yet, so far from oppressing our liberty, the
opening to our mind and heart of such a high and heavenly order
of truth and motive enlarges our freedom of interior action
beyond all that we could have previously imagined. The light
of faith not only reveals the heavenly world to us, and brings its
power within us, but it illuminates all earthly truth, and the
higher knowledge of God gives us the deeper knowledge of
ourselves. The heavenly mysteries seem to draw nigh to us,
because we are drawn towards them, and in their light the value
of all things is changed, and in many things reversed. So true
are the words of St. Paul, that " if any man be in Christ, he is a
new creature ".

^Vhere faith presents us with the truth, there is no more
question of opinions, or of the judgments of the natural man,
with their doubtings, hesitatings, and waverings ; but as we only
require light or authority to know the facts of this world, so
we only require supernatural light and authority to know the
great truths of Christianity, all of which are facts, and facts
to faith so certain and undeniable, that with every increase
of light, and every new instruction from that authority with
which Christ has deposited His truth, those divine facts
grow more firm and clear to the mind, are seen in greater
profundity and in a more beautiful harmony with each other ;
whilst each particular truth gives light to all the rest, because all
are essentially one and indivisible in the mind of God.

Man is therefore the recipient of truth and the subject of
truth : not only of natural truth, but of divine truth. And this truth
purifies his mind from darkness and error. But we have shown
in a previous lecture that he is also the subject of justice, and

25

386 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

that the light of justice comes to him with the light of truth,
and is contained in that light, and expresses the essential order of
things. When the mind is purified, elevated, and made sincere
towards God in the eternal truth, and the will is made conform-
able with the divine justice, the soul is prepared for union with
God as the Supreme Good, from whom that divine light of truth
and justice is received. The divine truth and justice are there-
fore the first objects that reach the faithful soul, revealing to her
that Supreme Good which is the final object of the soul, and
which is the reward of her fidelity to truth and justice. But to
be the subjects of this heavenly light implies that we live in
subjection to its divine influence, and this subjection constitutes
us in the fundamental virtue of humility.

The communicating of the light of divine truth and justice is
far, however, from being the whole account of what God does
for the faithful soul. The nature of man is too far from God, too
near to nothingness^ and the natural will too weak and dispropor-
tionate, to rise of its own strength to things divine. The will
must be purified from the injustice through which it turns from
God, and must receive the grace of justice by which to return to
God. The soul must receive a divine strength by which she may
ascend to the truth and justice of God : a strength to enable the
will to cleave to God through the light of His truth and justice in
faith, hope, and charity. This is that healing, strengthening, and
sanctifying grace which the subject soul receives through the
infinite merits of the Incarnation and Sacrifice of our Lord Jesus
Christ. But as every increase of natural strength gives greater
freedom to the will, how much more must the gift of divine
strength increase its power and give it greater freedom.

To give us the certain and visible proof that we are subject to
God, and that we really receive His truth and His grace, Christ
established His Church, and made it one as He is one, and in
His Church He deposited His authority, the principle of unity.
His truth, His sacraments, and His judicial power, that through a
human ministry His divine gifts might flow to men in a human
open and visible way, as well as in a divine and interior way ;
that there might be outward and visible security for His inward
and invisible gifts, and that His kingdom might hold together in
a visible obedience to God. Thus God gives the interior light,
whilst man gives the exterior instruction ; God gives the interior

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN 387

grace, whilst man presents the visible sacraments ; God gives the
grace to obey, whilst man enforces the precepts of justice. And
by the divine ordination, resting ever on the authority of Christ,
in obeying the authority of the Church we obey the voice of God.

To form a sound judgment, therefore, of any one's position
with respect to the true and just order of things, and to take the
measure of his moral stature, everything may be reduced to two
points. The first is his sincerity towards the truth given to his
mind and conscience, and the justice with which his will acts upon
that sincerity. But this sincerity requires that he make the truthful
distinction between what he is as the recipient of God's gifts,
whether they be the gifts of His providence or the gifts of His
grace ; between what we are, in a word, from the gifts of God,
and what by the conduct of our will amidst those gifts. The
second is the position which we hold with respect to God as the
final end and object of our life, and what progress we have made
through the use of the divine gifts towards that divine and eternal
good for which we were brought into existence.

But this sincerity with God and with self, the justice with which
we act upon this sincerity, and the progress we make towards
God, all which depend on our subjection to God and to His gifts,
are founded in the virtue of humility. This humility is the matrix,
the subjective and susceptive disposition of the soul, into which
the light and grace of God, which are the seminal principles of
the spiritual virtues, are received. It is the receptive disposition
of the soul made pure by the sincerity of justice, and capacious
to receive, and subject to God that it may receive. His divine
gifts. This disposition of the soul is itself a grace, and the dis-
poser of the soul for the more positive graces. To borrow the
words of Hugo of St. Victor : In humility is the principle of life,
because it subjects us to the Giver of Life ; whilst pride is the
cause of ruin, because it takes us away from the Giver of Life.
The Scriptures therefore strive in all their pages to convince
mankind that humility is the first good of man, and that pride
is the root of all evils. They are both of them amazingly
fertile, each is visible in its fruits, and each in its own way
exerts a prodigious influence upon the state and condition of
man.

Consider them as two trees whose roots are planted in different
human hearts, and observe the astonishing difference between

388 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN

their respective growths, and how different is the character of
their fruits. Each grows through the moral man, of whose
heart it has taken possession. They are not merely of different
but of opposite qualities, for one is the root of humility and the
other is the root of pride. The one produces the fruit of life
and the other the fruit of death. The one fruit is transparent with
lucid sincerity, the other is dull and dark with egotistical error.
The one grows heavenward and seeks the light, the other grows
earthward and seeks the gloom. The one is medicinal and heals
the soul, the other is poisonous and destructive to the system.
Each has found its congenial soil ; for the root of pride is planted
in the flesh, and the root of humility is planted in the spirit. No
one has observed the different qualities of pride and humility more
keenly than St. Paul, who never loses sight of them as the fontal
sources of good and evil. The heart is the seat of appetite, and
whichever of these two roots is there planted, it will determine
the appetite for the fruit which it produces. For the old Adam
in his pride sits at the root of the vicious tree, whilst the new
Adam, Christ, with His humility, holds possession of the spiritual
tree. Compare these two trees in their roots, branches, and fruits,
and then choose which of the two you prefer to have planted in
your nature.

It is the character of pride to be self-sufficient, to be independent
of the greater good, to trust in self as though self were the greater
good, to draw all things to self, and to measure all things by the
man's imagination rather than by God's truth. Pride is self-
opinionated, and hard to believe, and is haughty, and sensitive
when touched by the truth, and jealous, and unbending, and
uncharitable. It judges, and will not be judged ; it exacts
obedience unreasonably, and will not reasonably obey. Pride is
ever aspiring to exalt the man on false motives, to a false
position, and on false pretensions. It is a swelling and not a
growth, because it ever confounds the hollow capacity for good
with the good which ought to fill that capacity, but this good the
proud man will not humble himself to receive. It is the delight
of the proud man to be thought happy, whilst far from the good
that makes man happy. It is the delight of the polished man to
cover his pride that it may not be seen. And it is the delight of
the vain and vulgar man to proclaim that he has no pride,
unconscious of the gross pride that he reveals.

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN. 389

But the virtue of humility is the procreative foundation of all
the virtues. It opens the soul to God in the sincere knowledge
of her wants, and in the sincere trust that God will give to her
petitions that of which she is in want, and the humble soul is
reverential in the sense of her dependence on God. This is the
reason why God "gives His grace to the humble," and why He
" resists the proud " ; why He " knows the proud afar off, and the
humble near at hand ". It is also the reason why "he who humbles
himself shall be exalted ". The first of the virtues that comes to
humility is faith, and " without faith it is impossible to please
God," for " the just man lives by faith ". Yet what will faith
profit us unless we seek with hope what we know by faith ? " We
hope for that which we see not, we wait for it in patience." But
in hoping we love what by faith we hold, and to hope comes
charity. Thus faith working by love goes in a straight line to
God as the true object of the soul. But how these three virtues
which have God for their direct object are to be cultivated and
followed, we learn from the virtue of prudence. Then justice gives
the law for prudence to follow, and completes and adorns the
three virtues that directly look to God. Fortitude protects,
defends, and strengthens them ; and that the virtues of the soul
may not be choked with noxious weeds or with the overgrowth of
poisonous things, and so become stunted in their growth, tem-
perance is there to keep away or remove whatever might be
injurious to their free growth and expansion. When, therefore,
the three theological virtues are engrafted into the receptive root
of humility, and the four cardinal virtues are added to them, these
virtues bring to them in addition the seven gifts of the Holy
Ghost, which are the richest fruits that they can bear. And by their
efficacy the conspiracy of the vices is broken up, the corporation
of the devil is dissolved, and the Diyine Fountain of all the
virtues will be reached in safety.

If you set opposite qualities against each other, those qualities
will be strongly impressed upon your mind. Put black against
white, folly against wisdom, or pride against humility, and the
nature of each will come out in the most vivid contrast.
Apply this method to the fruits of these two trees. After you
have once tasted the sweetness of humility, you will find that
there is nothing so bitter as the fruits of pride, which are not only
bitter but destructive to the soul. But if you have ever been the

390 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

victim of pride, and have got free from that ruinous evil, j'ou will
find from what a malignant root you have parted, and how
wonderfully sweet and unexpectedly abundant is the peace that
comes to you with holy humility. If, then, you have the good
desire to have the peace of the virtues rather than the fury of the
vices, you will do well to trace them one by one to their
root ; because then the whole secret of their triumph will come
out ; you will find that secret in the fundamental grace of humility,
and that the theological virtues which seek God, and the cardinal
virtues which rule the man, rest upon this virtue as its crown*

If these Lectures have taught you anything to the purpose,
they will have shown you that this virtue of humility rests upon
the very nature of things, and has the whole breadth, and height,
and profundity of truth, both human and divine, for its foundations.
They will also have pointed out, or left to your inference, that
nothing can be more reasonable, nothing more just, nothing more
consonant with all truth, than that a man should bear himself with
sincere humility, both as the disciple of truth and as the subject
of God's gifts.

The parable of the mustard-seed may be taken in its small
beginning as the parable of creation, and its glorious growth from
so small a germ as the parable of divine providence. For although
it refers immediately to the beginning and growth of the Church,
the same law of great growth from small beginnings through the
gifts of God belongs to the order of nature as well as to the order of
grace. But whatever growth we individually receive, we can never
forget our feeble origin ; our earthly life is too short, and we have
too many examples of like beginnings around us, to allow of such
forgetfulness. Our actual advancement from such a poor beginning
is a parable again of future things. For if our present existence
is wonderful as compared with our first existence, if we have
already received such an expansion, and that so much greater
through the gifts of God on our intellectual and spiritual side than
on our earthly side, what may we expect from the promises of God
for the life to come, whose shadows are already upon us, provided
we fulfil the divine conditions which we know so well.

To measure our being by the space we fill in this world would
be too absurd to think of. The true measure of our being must be
taken by the amount of truth with which the mind is united, and
• See Hugo de S. Victore, De Fructibus Carnis et Spiritus.

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN. 391

by the amount of life with which the soul is endowed. The great
difference between man and man consists in their amount of
spiritual power. For the mind grows on truth, and is greater in
proportion to the grandeur and elevation of the truth of which it
partakes ; and the soul increases in grandeur with the greatness
and elevation of the good on which her love is fixed ; and she
grows less in proportion as she sinks her affections down to things
that are low and base.

We cannot think of material things without thinking of their
limitations, because by their limitations they are chiefly known.
What is greater than their limits is added by the mind, whose limits
are of another order. In a statue we see nothing but the limits
which the artist gives to the marble out of which he gets the form
of man by limiting the block of stone, and what else there is is
supplied by the mind of the beholder. Who can tell the mystery
of space ? All we can say is, that it is the local limitation of the
material creature, and that time is the measure of the flight of mortal
life. Hence St. Paul calls time momentary, and the creature next
to nothingness. But the soul holds communion with what is infinite
and eternal. It is no wonder, therefore, that those who give their
minds to nothing but what belongs to time and space find life a
great perplexity.

If we reflect how time affects us under different conditions, we
shall find how intimately it is connected with ourselves. When
much occupied with ourselves, we find that time goes long and
heavily with us. The weariness of sickness, of a period of inward
trouble, or of disappointed expectation, is proverbial. The weari-
ness of idleness is not in any way less effective in causing us to feel
the burden of time. Why is this but because we are thrown upon
ourselves, and self is wearisome ? But whenever we are absorbed in
some great objective truth, affection, or interest, that carries one
away from oneself, we not only find the time short, but are often
unconscious of its passage. Well known is the Eastern legend of
the hermit who upset his jar of water at the instant he was rapt in
the contemplation of eternal things. On returning to himself he
thought his mind had been away for a thousand years, but he found
that the water had not yet all run out of the jar. Equally well
known is the legend of the monk who, whilst contemplating in the
woods, heard the eternal song. On returning from his rapture to
himself, he thought he had been but a moment or two, but on

392 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

returning to his monastery, he found that all was changed. No one
knew him, and he knew no one. But on referring to the registers,
they found there had been a monk of his name and description
long years ago. These legends are attractive because they put a
profound truth in a striking way. The one took the measure of time
from the great things he beheld, and the other was so rapt away from
himself as to be unconscious of time. Leaving legends for authentic
facts, one has known holy souls so absorbed in the contemplation
of God as to be altogether unconscious of time and place, until the
call of duty brought them back to themselves. When engaged with
ourselves we are less happy, or altogether unhappy ; when occupied
with some great object we are more happy ; but when absorbed in
God we are altogether happy. What greater proof can we have of
the truth, that man is a subject only, and not an object to himself,
and that he is made for an infinite and eternal object.

But this subject bears the image of God, and in that image there
is a certain reflection of God, a certain shadow of His eternal truth,
and a certain consciousness of the divine presence as well as of
the divine law and will. In these lights he has a certain knowledge
of a Being who is infinite, eternal, unchangeable, and perfect, whose
subject he is. And he knows, or ought to know, that all the un-
changeable forms of truth, justice, beauty, and goodness present at
any time in his mind, have their origin in God, and not in himself,
or in any creature ; because these are unchangeable and the crea-
ture is changeable ; because these are eternal and the creature is
of time ; because these are not limited to space, and the creature
of this world is limited to space. But the more we adhere to the
unchangeable truth and will of God, the less changeable we are,
and the less conscious of the burden of time. We are the stronger,
better, and happier, because we are nearer the source of strength
and happiness, closer to our real good, closer to the divine object
for which we are created, and farther from our self, for which we
were not created. St. Augustine understood this when he said :
" Join thyself to eternity, and thou shalt find rest ". For the more
our spirit is united with eternal things, the more we reflect the
unchangeable peace of eternity, and the less subject we are to the
fretful things of time.

Whilst we are so much limited on our sensual side, we are
unlimited on our spiritual side, in that degree at least in which we
deny ourselves to our sensual side. From our spiritual side we

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN. 393

communicate with eternal and infinite things. This is the reason-
able ground of that law of self-denial and mortification which the
Son of God has given us, and which as the perfect man He prac-
tised. But this denial of our inferior nature is exercised in three
ways : by refusing ourselves beyond what is needful to our sensual
appetites, by holding the passions of our nature under firm control,
and by abstracting the soul from them through the active com-
munion of the mind and will with divine and eternal things.

Let us return to the grain of mustard-seed, to the law of the
first beginning. What parent ever took the trembling mystery of
infancy to his breast without feeling how poor and feeble is the
origin of man? The first dawn of human life is nothing but
animal instinct and vegetable life. The soul created in that
animal frame is still enfolded with its light, as the rosebud in its
green and tender leaves. How has the body grown from its
germinal existence to its state of vigorous maturity ? Unless God
had provided the inexhaustible resources of His providence, it
must have perished. Every mother might repeat the words of the
brave mother of the Machabees, when she exhorted her seven
children to die for the law of God : " I know not how you were
formed in the womb, for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor
life, neither did I frame the limbs of each one of you ".

Think of your long dependence on your mother's love and care.
You grew at her breast ; your affections were opened by the
outpourings of her own ; your mind was awakened to its first acts
by her tender babblings ; and she brought your tongue to speak.
Upon the mother's care came the father's authority, and your
subjection to your parents prepared and disposed you for your
subjection to God, whom they first taught you to know. This
is the wonderful moment of transition from earthly to heavenly
beginnings, when the light of reason begins to dawn, and when
with the light of reason dawns the light of grace. The mother
points to Heaven with gentle words, and the child begins to know
that Heavenly Father to whom the little hands and eyes are lifted
up in the first simple accents of prayer. What can be more
beautifully ordered than this carrying up of love and duty from
our earthly parents to our Heavenly Father, from whom they
descend anew with greater strength towards those earthly parents by
whom they were first awakened. The long years of growth and
consequent dependence assigned to man, as compared with the

394 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

rapid maturity of the irrational animals, shows how much he has
to acquire as an intelligent being ; and the length of his pupilage
is divinely ordained that the dependence of his nature may be
deeply imprinted upon him, and that he may be trained to that
life-long obedience which he owes to God.

How have you reached your manhood ? The mere history of
your corporal nourishment is most wonderful. It has come to
you from all climes, and has engaged the industry of many races
of men. Thousands of your fellow-creatures have contributed
their toils, cares, perils, and sufferings under the overruling pro-
vidence of God, to build up your body to the vigour of manhood.
It were a goodly lesson to human conceit were you to meditate
on the history of your clothing, shelter, diet, and personal com-
fort ; and then on the providence of God, that beyond the inten-
tion of all these toiling and suffering creatures has brought the
products of their labours to bear on your own well-being. Put
all these means and eternal resources together, trace them to
their several origins, and you will be amazed at the number and
variety of causes, external to your own will, that God has brought
into operation to make you what you are.

But if the earth has conspired with all its elements, and with
the toils and labours of so many of God's creatures, to construct,
nourish, and protect your mortal frame, Heaven has sent forth its
light, and God His graces, to develop and raise up your soul, that
the image of God within you might ascend to His likeness. By
the faith of your parents you were brought in your unconscious-
ness to the Church of God ; your offences were removed, and
you received the grace that inclines the soul to God. Thus was
the image of God raised to His likeness, and the light of God's
countenance was sealed upon you in the reception of faith, hope,
and charity. As you were generated to Adam without your will,
you were regenerated unto Christ without your will. As you
contracted offence without your will, your offence was removed
without your will.

And now began your training, both as the child of man and
the child of God. Who shall tell the outward, and still less the
inward, history of the opening of your mind to light and know-
ledge? How many minds, and how many facts, have helped you
to this knowledge ? But of what avail would all external help
have been without the interior light of reason and faith, which

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN. 395

have never ceased to shine into your mind from God ? Think for
a moment how many minds, in how many ages, nations, and con-
ditions of life, have contributed to the education of your mind
and the storing of your memory. Who, again, shall tell the history
of the forming of your heart to justice, duty, and generosity ?
What a narrative would that be that would tell the history in all
its steps of the interior of one single Christian soul, through her
conflicts of light with darkness, of grace with nature, of con-
science with self, of humility with pride, from the first dawn of
reason and active faith to the sanctified hour of her departure to
God ! This is the charm of the lives of the saints, although so
much of their interior history can never be known until it is
revealed to us in Heaven.

But in vain had been all teaching, in vain all the discipline of
youth, without the light of God to see His truth, and the grace to
will His law. Parents, pastors, and teachers may have done their
part, but God gave them the light to teach, and gave us the light
to understand ; they were the instrument to develop the gifts of
which God is the giver. What a gift is that of speech. What the
body is to the soul, speech is to our intellectual light. It is the
essential instrument both for apprehending and communicating
truth, as well as the bond of social life and of social religion. It
was given by God to the intelligence, and can only exist through
intelligence. Through the gift of language we receive the
revelations of God, the wisdom of past ages, the present com-
munications of mind to mind, and the knowledge of what is distant
from us in time and place. Through the gift of language we are
able to know the course of God's providence through all the ages
of the world. Through this gift all the traditions of past ages reach
us in this present time, and every kind of knowledge both human
and divine. As the body in due order is the obedient servant of
the soul, speech in due order is the obedient servant of truth.

Looking to all these things, each of them seems to put St. Paul's
question in its turn : "What hast thou which thou hast not re-
ceived ? And if thou hast received, why dost thou glory as if thou
hadst not received ? " These questions go to the very roots of
good and evil. For both truth and justice require us to confess the
gifts of God, and that we should not ascribe to ourselves what
we receive from Him. But whoever is so far gone in pride as to
ascribe to himself what he has received from God has infected

396 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

his soul with a dark falsehood and deformed his life with a deep
injustice.

It is often said that men have much in common, but in so
far as the vision of the mind and the justice of the will is
concerned, they are often as far from each other as though they
were creatures of another kind, and lived in different worlds.
What can be farther asunder than the man who thinks in the light
of God and the man who thinks only in the light of nature? What
can be wider apart than the man whose will is centred on God
and the man whose will is centred on himself? They differ from
each other in the fundamental principles of life, thought, and
conduct. Whilst the man of nature has the most contracted views
of everything, the man of faith has an infinite prospect before his
mind ; whilst the natural man acts on the lowest motives, the man
of faith is elevated by the highest motives of which an intelligent
creature is capable. He thinks more from God's point of view
than from his own, because this divine point of view has become
his own ; and thus he beholds even human affairs in the light of
divine principles.

Let us not be deceived by our present confines and limitations.
We already feel our capacity for eternal things, and whilst bound
in body to the earth, we can ascend in mind to Heaven. Our
desires are in advance of our position, and we know that God is
secretly with us. But every advancement towards the open
possession of God involves the breaking down of our natural
limitations, and this breaking through our limitations is always a
surrender of self and a sacrifice. Through our birth from Adam
we are in the bondage of Satan, and we are freed from that bondage
through the regeneration of Christ. But though by His regenera-
tion we are transferred into His kingdom, we are still in the
bondage of ignorance. From this bondage we are set free through
the labours of instruction. After the light of instruction has
expanded the mind and made it free in the truth, we still find
ourselves compressed and held under restraint by our bodily
senses, and by that passionate egotism and concupiscence which
fetter and clog the wings of the soul. Then comes the combat of
the spirit against the flesh, and of the love of God against the love
of self, a long and severe combat calling for self-denial, patience,
and many sacrifices before the soul obtains the calm supremacy and
the body is reduced to subjection. When this deliverance is won,

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN. 397

it is only the first restoration to order, and the beginning of
freedom. Every more earnest aspiration after God is a departure
from that bondage which holds us in fetters to our self-seeking
limits. Every new light from God breaks down something of the
dark circle of ignorance by which we are imprisoned. If the soul
ascends to a higher contemplation of eternal truth, she has parted
with some of her earthly load, and has ascended into a diviner
atmosphere. Whenever she courageously quits herself in the
ventures of faith and hope, and casts her heart upon God as the
fountain of her life, she breaks some invisible chain that held her
to her native weakness. When she denies herself to herself that she
may live to God, and love Him above all things and in all things,
and when in the love of God she sacrifices her repose in the service
of her neighbours, she habitually breaks away from the limits set
to nature by self-love, and becomes enlarged in spirit, light, and
grace, and free with that liberty with which God sets us free,
extending herself ever more beyond her native confines. Finally,
the mortal body is wholly sacrificed at the divine call, that the
soul may pass to God.

We have considered the beginning and the midway of man ;
but the beginning is for the end, and the midway leads to the
end. The beginning rests on creation, the midway rests on the
divine providence, but the end of the just rests on God. Our great
capacity as the image of God was given to us as our first prepara-
tion for our final end ; the fundamental appetite of our soul for
universal good was given to dispose us towards our final end ;
the supernatural light of faith is given to light us on the way
to our final end ; the law of eternal justice is given to rule us
towards our final end ; the grace of Christ is given us to strengthen
our will to gain our final end ; the gifts of the Holy Spirit are
given to sanctify us for our final end. The creation makes God
known to us, whilst it veils Him from our sight. And the more
closely we question the creation, the more clearly it tells us that
it is not our end, is not the universal good, but only an inferior
and transient good, only a veil before the eternal good, unable to
satisfy the soul of man, which is the image of God. All things
in this world, in their right use, are for our final end, but our final
end is for its own sake. Our beginning is full of solicitude, our
midway is full of labour and care, but our final end has neither
sohcitude, nor labour, nor care. But the greater the love which

398 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN

the soul has for God as her final end, the more rapid is her move-
ment towards her final end. Love moves and intention guides
her motion to the end of all her desire, and she is already in part
possession, although not yet secure.

As all good is measured by its end, so all evil is measured by
its end. For as there is a supreme end of all good which is so
high that there is nothing above it, there is also an end of evil
which is so base and low that there is nothing beneath it. Heaven
is the summit of the good that reaches its end, and hell is the
lowest descent of the evil that reaches its end. The end of
the wicked w^ho go on to their mortal end in wickedness is their
utter failure from their final end, and the consummation of evil.
God is their final end, but to God they can never come. With
the God who is infinitely pure, just, and holy, the defilement of
what is unchangeably impure, unjust, and unholy can never be
united. The end of the wicked, says St. Paul, " is destruction " ;
and a destruction the more terrible because it is not the destruc-
tion of existence, since the soul is created immortal for immortal
good ; nor yet the end of evil, since the sinner would not change
his evil will ; but a destruction that brings the evil one to the
last extremity of evil, that stands at the remotest distance from
the final end of man. For as there is a supreme end of good,
in which the just man finds all the good for which he was
created, there is an extreme end of evil prepared by the
Eternal Justice for all unjust and perverted wills. But this is
not the final end of man, which is the same for all, but the
final loss of that end. In the words of Ecclesiasticus : " Every
corruptible work shall fail in the end, and the worker thereof
shall go with it".

" I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end,
saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come,
the Almighty." In these words the Son of God proclaims that
all things have their beginning through Him, and all things have
their end in Him, to whom the Father hath delivered all things.
As the Word of God He made all things, and enlightens all intelli-
gences. As the Word Incarnate He bridged over the gulf of
separation between God and the fallen creature. Through His
sacrifice and resurrection He renewed all things, and opened the
way of return through Himself for all mankind to God. He is
the author and the end of the world and of the ages, of the Law

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN. 399

and the Prophets, of the Gospel and the Church, and to all that
are His He gives the beginning and the end of perfection. " He
is the first and the last," says St. Ambrose : " the first because all
things are through Him, the last because the resurrection is also
through Him. He descended into this earth, and placed Himself
beneath all, that He might lift up whatever was fallen." * As He
is the renewer of all things, and the perfecter of whatever is per-
fected. He is likewise the judge of all, assigning his end to every
one according to his works.

There is no beginning or end of God, and only with respect to
us is this to be understood, that He is the beginner of our nature,
and the author of our grace, and the end of our faith and love.
He is the beginner of our justification, and the accomplisher
of our justification, and the perfecter of our justification. Where-
fore He concludes the whole course of His divine revelations
with these words : " Behold I come quickly ; and My reward is
with me, to render to every man according to his works. I am
the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning
aud the end. Blessed are they who wash their robes in the
blood of the Lamb ; that they may have a right to the tree of
life, and may enter in by the gates of the city. Without
are dogs, and sorcerers, and the unchaste, and murderers,
and servers of idols, and every one that loveth and maketh
a lie. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these
things in the churches. I am the root and stock of David,
the bright and morning star. And the spirit and the bride say :
Come. And he that heareth, let him say : Come. And he that
thirsteth, let him come. And he that will, let him take the water
of life freely,"

When the just soul leaves the earth, and is purified from every
stain, she is prepared for the vision of God. She will enter into
the eternal region, where " there is no sun nor moon, for the
Lamb is the light thereof". She will have reached her final end.
She will have come to the Fountain of Light, from which all
spirits are illuminated, and will be at the Fountain of Life, in
which all the angels and saints are blessed with eternal life. She
will see God. And what is it to see God ? " Eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of any man to
conceive what God hath prepared for them who love Him." Let

* S. Ambros., De Institut. Virginum, c. ii.

400 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

us not be deceived, I again repeat, by our present limitations.
This world is but our place of trial ; the body is our prison, and
our carnal senses are the fetters that confine the soul. We are
now in the day of clouds, and see but obscurely, and have but
slight foretastes of the life to come. But when we are delivered
from this earthly prison, and unfettered from the carnal senses,
and the spirit prepared by faith and love shall pass from place
and time, and come into the open presence of God, her capacity
shall expand to all its magnitude, as the glory of God enters into
her being. A fire of life will enter into her spirit, giving her
immortal strength to behold the vision of God. Beholding with
open face, she will be filled with light, and see all truths in one
Eternal Truth, and will see the substance of truth in the Father
who created her, in the Son who redeemed her, and the Holy
Ghost who sanctified her. In one God and Father of all, who is
above all, and through all, and in all intelligences, she will see
the beginning and the end of whatever is good in Heaven or on
earth.

God is love. The life of God is love. The life of all that are
in God is love from His infinite love. This life of love carries
the intelligent creature towards God with a fire and force that
consumes every thought and desire of turning again to the
creature. For all good is found in the One Supreme Good, on
which the soul makes her final rest. She neither turns to herself,
nor to anything beneath herself. God is her object, her light,
her strength, her life. " They shall be inebriated with the torrent
of His delight." The soul is now a pure likeness of God, looking
to Him alone, filled with His good to the brim of her capacity, no
longer living in herself, because God lives in her. She sees
nothing in herself, but, become ecstatic, she sees all things in God.
And what shall she there see ?

She beholds the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the fountain of
all reason and life. She beholds God at His work of creation,
drawing all things out of nothing through the Eternal Word. She
beholds Him exercising the stupendous work of His providence,
ruling all things on their course, nourishing all things, and giving
to each creature the perfection that accords with His eternal
plan. She beholds the Eternal Word in His infinite and eternal
beauty, illuminating all spirits and enlightening all intelligences.
She beholds Him in His Godhead as He is the image of the

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN. 401

Father's substance and the splendour of His glory. She beholds
Him in His humanity, as He sits at the right hand of the Father,
and looks into the depths of the mystery of human redemption,
into which the angels longed to look before it was accomplished.
She beholds the Son of God as He is the Divine Head of His
Church and of humanity, sending forth to all the earth the rays
of His light, the streams of His grace, and the power of His
spirit, and holding the members within His body in the unity of
faith and obedience. She sees the Holy Spirit, one eternal love
with the Father and the Son, sending forth the gifts of wisdom
and sanctification, reaching from end to end of all things mightily,
and disposing all things sweetly. She sees that whatever is good,
or wise, or strong, or pure, or sweet, or beautiful, or deserving of
love in the created universe, is but some shadow, reflection, image,
or vestige of that supreme and sovereign power, wisdom, good-
ness, beauty, hoUness, and perfect unity of Being, in whom is the
one indivisible and eternal life, whom she blesses and adores as
the Infinite Good, and as the Inexhaustible Giver of all good to
every creature.

That soul, thus blessed with the Beatific Vision, is but one
of myriads of spirits embracing every order of angels and saints,
who form one society in God, and after their successful probation
form one united kingdom of Heaven. Each of those innumerable
spirits was a special creation, and each is a distinct and singular
work of grace. Each a several and particular star of light and
life in that bright Heaven, with her own history, her own accom-
plished course, her own especial reward and glory. And whilst
each is a likeness of God, how endlessly varied is the likeness.
The good of each is the joy of all, for there is no jealousy where
there is no self-love, and where the same Divine Spirit worketh all
in all.

Now do those blessed spirits comprehend the full sense of His
words who redeemed them in His precious blood : " I am the
light and the life ". And " I have given you to have life, and to
have it more abundantly ". And " As the Father liveth by me,
and I by the Father, so he that partaketh of Me, the same shall
live by Me ". And where He said : " He that loveth Me shall be
loved of My Father : and I will love him, and will manifest Myself
to him ". As He also said : " If any one love Me, he will keep
My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him,

26

402 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN.

and make our abode with him ". All that these divine promises
signify is now unveiled and perfected, in spirits become all sight and
spiritual sense, and able through their whole capacity to embrace
the supreme good for which they were created.

As the soul contemplates all things in God, and nothing in
herself, and as all things past are present with Him, she sees all
that God has done for her in the divine mirror of Eternal Truth, and
there beholds the record of her marvellous advancement from her
beginning on the verge of nothingness to her final end in God.
Her creation in the image of God, her gift of rational light, and
her growth and progress in the world through the unceasing gifts
of God's providence in so many kinds, are all present to her
mind. The work of her redemption and restoration to God fills
her heart with an unspeakable gratitude. She beholds all those
converging lines of good, whether earthly or heavenly, which God
in His loving care had made to bear upon her course of life,
to nourish and protect her nature, instruct her mind, sustain her
hope, and build her up in the service of the living God. She sees
the whole of that precious chain of divine lights, graces, inspira-
tions, encouragements in trial, pardons after failure, consolations
and strengthenings, that extends over her mortal life, and has
brought her on her way to God. She sees how God went
before her preparing her way, and with her to support her in the
way, and followed after her to make her way secure; afflicting
her but to heal, striking but to save, humbling but to exalt her.
In a word, she there in that eternal mirror sees how God made all
things work together for the good of His elect.

She there also sees with most profound astonishment, how poor
are the services which even the most zealous of His intelligent
creatures render to God, when compared to the services that
God has rendered to them. He has not only given us the services
of His creatures on earth and of His angels and saints in Heaven,
but has Himself provided for all our needs of every kind. And
when our blessed Lord came to this earth He said : " I came not
to be served, but to serve". Hence great saints of God, in
moments of ecstatic intuition, have used such language as this :
" When I behold the dear God taking such care of us, and bring-
ing us all that we have need of both for soul and body, I cannot
but exclaim — O God, Thou art our servant ". It is nobler to give
than to receive, but to serve is to give more than all gifts. The

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN. 403

Son of God gave Himself to us. It is most truly a very noble
thing to give ourselves to God's service, since He gives Himself
to ours.

That one soul whom we have considered as she has reached the
final object of her existence, is but an example from the great
multitude which no man can number, and in whom are exhibited
the inexhaustible diversities of the divine gifts. Each of them has a
separate and singular history ; each has her own course among the
countless tracks that mark the ways of souls through time ; each
her own path of providence ; each her own luminous chain of
graces and mercies that have conducted her in a different way
from nothingness to the final possession of God. And when all
these souls shall have received their corporal frames anew, raised
in the power of Christ from mortality to immortality, and from
dishonour to glory, each will be the spiritualized and agile instru-
ment of the soul to which it belongs, having its own proper
character and glory, derived from the glorifying presence of God
in the soul. The great end of the creation, contemplated from the
first, is accomplished in them. God is wonderfnl in His saints.
Their very bodies are as harps and cymbals on which to celebrate
the praises of God, who has raised earth itself to a life so magnifi-
cent. The kingdom of Christ is transformed into the kingdom of
Heaven, where He reigns supreme over those whom He has
purchased with His blood, and perfected by His spirit. It is the
new Heaven and the new earth raised up to God by Him who makes
all things new. And whilst every spirit praises God with a grati-
tude ever renewed for all that He has done for her, that endless
diversity of spirits, in whom one spirit reigns, gives an incon-
ceivable breadth and magnificence to the harmony of the celestial
choirs, in whom all the works of the Lord bless the Lord, praise
and exalt Him for evermore.

We may sum up the moral application of this book in a few
sentences from the pen of St. Hilary. " In His own example the
Lord hath taught us to give up the ambition of human glory. He
has also left us this precept : ' The Lord thy God thou shalt adore,
and Him only shalt thou serve '. And through His Prophet He
tells us that He chooses the humble people who tremble at His
word, and shows us thereby that He has placed the beginning of
beatitude in an humble spirit. If we breathe humble things, we
shall not forget that we are men ; and whilst we are made members

404 FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END OF MAN

of God's kingdom, our conscience will keep us in remembrance
that God has perfected our body out of the meanest and poorest
elements, and through His ministering providence has advanced
our soul to her present sense, and to her present ability of knowing,
feeling, judging, and acting. Nothing is any man's own, for no
one can claim an exclusive right or property in what he has. From
one Divine Father we have all received the same beginning of
life, and He has ministered the substance whereby our life has
grown and is maintained. Our duty, therefore, is to imitate that
bounty which is exercised towards us by the best of fathers in giving
us all things. This is done by being good to all, and by holding
what we have received at the service of all. On the other hand,
we ought not to suffer the pretentious insolence of this world to
corrupt us, nor the thirst for wealth, nor the ambition of vainglory.
But let us keep ourselves subject to God ; and as we have received
a life that is common to all, let us hold to all who have this life by
the charity that is given us for all. We may take the fact that
we have been advanced thus far from nothing by the Divine
Goodness, as proof that we may be advanced still farther, until we
reach the Divine Goodness Himself, as the honour and reward
of our faithful conduct in this life. Thus through the spirit of
humility, whereby we are subject to God and to His gifts, we
are brought to the better things of our hope, and the kingdom of
Heaven will be ours." *

* S. Hilarius, in Matthtsum, c. iv.

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